Going Out on the Lamb

Here's a little "things I don't feel like throwing to the ground anymore" haiku.

Made me hurl you did

Pickles mustard lamb and dill

Now I'll eat you all

Tonight, I finally conquered the last food item I disliked, lamb, thanks to the Southern Cross.

Yes, that's a picture of the ground.

Analytical Donairs

I've been in Ottawa for a while now and haven't been blessed with the East Coast donair gods since the days when you could leisurely drive to Smith Falls, pick up some bulk chocolate at the Hershey factory and finish your drive with a stop at Pizza Delight. Once seated in the familiar environment we all grew up eating in, I'd order a Donair with extra donair sauce and garlic fingers to share, which also comes with donair sauce.

Gone are those days.. now they've shut down the Hershey factory *tear* and Pizza Delight *streaming tears of fury*, and I've been reduced to bi-yearly donair visitation rights when I go home to New-Brunswick. I hear the king of Donairs is, well, the King of Donair in Halifax, but I grew up swearing up and down Champlain St. that Pizza Delight's and Acadia Donair's version of the sauce was bar-none. It's all about the sauce topping the meat, tomatoes and onions, but here are a few key differences.

Pizza Delight's donair is piled high on a tough and chewy pizza dough and comes with a steak knife because frankly, it's unfold able and there's no other way to eat that bad boy.

Here's a close up for good measure.

The donair meat is crispy like crisp bacon, but cut too perfectly, like crisp chicken bacon, or as I call it, fakecon. Also note the iceberg lettuce which is atypical for donairs. Nonetheless, it's so tasty I refuse to order anything else from PD, including the world's best Caesar salad (ask a Maritimer), but not limited to Garlic Fingers. For the uninitiated, garlic fingers are pizza dough slathered in a supremely garlicky mélange and topped with oodles of cheesy goodness, then sliced into easily shareable rectangles about the width of two fingers.

Acadie Pizza's donairs can be gargantuan creations by a now famous local donair maker who's little restaurant has stood the test of time. Almost ousted from his location, fans now leave a token of appreciation, usually a hand written napkin note praising his efforts to stay open.

Pardon the blurred cell phone picture. This small version of the Halifax Donair also comes monstersized, which is not unlike the size of a football. No need to attempt a dripping disaster, you can also purchase extra pita bread and sauce, reconstructing the larger donair into about eight smaller ones. Trust me, it fed three and we had leftovers.

Enough about my history with East Coast Donairs.. I now bring you..

Halifax style Donairs in Ottawa!

Yes, the rumors are true, Centretown Resto Bar on Bronson St. makes fabulous donairs with East Coast (ie Halifax) style donair sauce, or the closest thing I've found to it in O-ttown..

Their donairs come in small or large, you can pick up, get delivery or eat in and watch the game. I don't care how you get yours, but consider running. Don't forget extra napkins on your way out.

Food notes from abroad..

I recently received the first e-mail from a friend who has left Canada in search of a lengthy world experience. For a non-foodie friend who used to eat spaghetti 7 days out of seven, he wrote of such vigorous food thoughts that I could not mask my surprise at his bold statements and asked if I could post his message.

Such, his journey begins in New Zealand..

"So I've beem here 9 days now. On day 4, I met a British guy that wasn't really a foodie but was accustomed to eating good meals in his family. He asked me what I thought of the food here in NZ. I hadn't really thought about it too hard. I'd only tasted a few things. I shrugged and said it's alright. He said he thought it was bad. Just bad. Like everything tastes slightly different, but in a bad way. Since he said that, I started noticing it everywhere. I've hardly had a good meal. I've purchased a few meals that looked amazing but turned out to be mediocre or even just plain bad. What's the concensus among foodies? Is NZ known for bad food? What doesn't taste like shit here?

Thanks,"

Uhm, bold statement, P. Since I haven't traveled there I don't have an opinion, but surely it's not ALL bad, right? Must have tapped into his foodie sense, so far I've received nothing but food related e-mails, all escalating in hilarity and sounding more and more like a cry for help. I'll try and find you something.

Big Banana Ice Cream Fail

I was quite shocked to hear that crushing frozen bananas in a blender could make one ingredient creamy ice cream, according to the Kitchn.

Probably so, just as long as you're using a food processor that was manufactured post the 1980 date and that you have not used it to chop endless amounts of basil right prior to it's current use. Both cause my ice cream's demise.

For starters it was too dry so I added a bit of water & yogurt. (I blame that on my processor.) The texture improved, but there's just no way to hide basil in banana!

Can you imagine that I couldn't bring myself to throw this horrible mistake? It's still in my freezer, yet I wouldn't even feed it to a cat. Well.. I would, but only so I could find out if cats make the same bitter-faces that I make.

It's not that hard you guys.. it's just Reese's..

I had a hankering for peanut butter cups over the last Christmas holiday back home, which is pretty surprising considering I made ten varieties of cookies over two weeks, as well as truffle coated cherries (which the dog ate in it's entirety). So there I am, staring at my dad's extensive pantry, wondering if it's possible to make these little poppers.

Chocolate coating in little cups: doable with melted Callebaut chocolate disks and mini foil cups, both of which I had on hand. But.. what's in a Reese's peanut butter cup.. what's in the middle? Crisp and sweet, it can't just be PB. Let's ask Google.. a two second search tells me it's... wait for it... graham cracker crumbs! (gasp!) The stars had aligned in my father's kitchen, ingredients were on hand with my incurable craving. I was on a mission without a recipe.

what you'll need (I heart Bulk Barn):

Callebaut chocolate
graham cracker crumbs

tiny foil cups

peanut butter

First, I assembled endless mini foil cups on a baking sheet and refrigerated it, as to not give away what I was doing should anyone pop into my kitchen-lab.

Next, I melted little Callebaut chocolate disks on a makeshift double boiler. (A metal bowl placed over a pot of simmering water.)

Then I lined the cups with chocolate by dropping in a little spoonful, twirling and spreading it as necessary until the bottom and sides were thinly covered, and popped them into the refrigerator until hardened.

Meanwhile, I melted the pb and added crumbs until it was thick, but not instant-cookie thick. (ftw are instant cookies...) I kept in mind that pb will eventually harden, rendering my lil concoction to a paste like consistency wrapped in a thin hard cocoa shell. To prevent a dry mixture once hard, it needed a proper balance of crumbs. It's a bloody guessing game folks. Taste it in the process. Spoon into the lil cups, leaving enough room for a thin chocolate coating. Refrigerate until hard.

Melt more chocolate, yada yada yada, apply thin coat to the top of cups, and why haven't I posted a single picture yet. Refrigerate.

They're done when they feel cold and hard. I kept them in the fridge until an hour before serving them, thus protecting them from the choc eating German pointer beast.

He's in fact a super nice dog... as sweet as these homemade PB cups which the friends called "more addicting than the real thing". And there you have it, bite marks and all.

Red Wine and Pasta, together at last

The Italians have it right. I wanted to start this post with that sentence but really, it's care of some Serious Eats newsletter that I bring you this best week's recipe from that week long long ago, a recipe for Spaghetti All'Ubriaco, which they tell me is Italian for drunken spaghetti.. Yes! Spaghetti cooked in a mixture of half red wine and half water, then splashed with extra wine right at the end (among other added things).

Rrrrrrrrrrr....

I was so intrigued by the recipe and inspired by the poster's enthusiasm that when I got home after work the same day, looked at that whole wheat spaghetti displayed in this glass jar on my fridge, and this leftover wine I had on that there counter, it was a no-brainer.. I needed to combine this and that and check out what the fuss was all aboot.

I'm terrible at following recipes, I most always meddle and fix it to my liking, as is the case with the linked recipe.

2 cups water

2 cups drinkable cheap red wine, plus 1/4 cup, reserved/separated

2 person portion of whole wheat pasta (kamut, spelt are healthy too. I estimate, sorry! Maybe I need this spaghetti measuring tool to crowd up my gadget drawer.)

1 leek, thinly sliced

1 large garlic clove, sliced

2 tbsp fresh parsley (I was out)

1 tbsp butter

olive oil on hand for splashing (in the dish, eh)

Start by lightly caramelizing the leeks in a bit of olive oil. Not sure how? Caramelizing happens when cooking something over low heat for a long time. This brings out the sweet nutty flavour of certain foods, so toss the leeks in a splash of olive oil big enough to coat but not drown, and let them sit over low heat in a pan until they change color and become increasingly delicious. Set aside, and by aside I don't mean in your mouth, not yet.

Oh... they were so plentiful before... caramelization: size < flavour.

Boil the liquids, add pasta and cook al dente, stirring often. Meanwhile, brown the sliced garlic in another splash of olive oil and the butter.

Drain the liquid into a bowl, marvel at the beauty of your cooked pasta, add the 1/4 cup of wine to the garlic in the pan, plus a generous portion of the red water. Turn up the heat so the mixture starts simmering, add the al dente pasta, the caramelized leeks and parsley, and toss the pan around until the liquid is absorbed.

Done! Add some shredded/grated cheese if you like. As usual, I did not.

Tv chefs have taught me that cooking alcohol abolished the alcohol content, but according to serious studies, alcohol added to a mixture and boiled for 15 minutes retains 40% of its alcohol content; another prime example that you can't believe everything you see on tv. With this newfound knowledge, I've decided this is one dish I'll be happy not to share with kids.

Taste? A tastesplosion in a major way.

This presentation has been brought to you by this wine and that pasta.

Cutting the Grapefruit.

I was editing a small video I made about cutting grapefruit a while ago, and after a hour of reading and an hour of practicing with Adobe Premiere, I saved my project. When I tried opening the wrong saved file, my computer wouldn't recognize the file type. Thinking I did something wrong and too tired to care, I went to bed and forgot about it. Until I stumbled on it today.

That being said, I love stumbling on things, especially when it's something I made and didn't know I had, like this video here.

What to do with pinch bowls?

The topic of pinch bowls came up today, or more like "what to do with pinch bowls". In reality, what can't you do with these cute silicone bowls. I purchased eight last year when Domus (the closest kitchen supply store) had a massive 40% sale. As you may know, I'm a bit of a condiment fan; they've come in handy when I want to have six different sauces for my plate of McCain low fat fries or when I'm pre-measuring spices.

What other uses could they have? I wasn't aware how minuscule small eggs could get until I saw these, care of the dude who picked them out of the grocery refrigerator...

... and now I'm wondering if I could use my pinch bowls to poach these teeny eggs, instead of getting one of the poachers I've been debating over.

The poaching idea: to be continued..

We Now Interrupt For This Special Public Service Announcement..

When removing roasted almonds or cookies from an oven always use both hands to lift the pan out of the oven and both hands to close the oven door. DO NOT try to open, remove with one hand and close with the other simultaneously. This will not, I repeat, will not work in your favor.


"If fooled, you can't get fooled again..."



WRONG! As the saying goes, Fool me once, shame on you, pan. Fool me twice, shame on me.. in the shape of a burnt almond ouchie.


"How the frak do you burn yourself twice roasting almonds??"


I've been asking myself the same question, twice a day, which is how often I change my arm bandage. It's been three weeks. Lesson learned, ok?

Food Monstar's Fruity Fruity Coconut Almond Oatmeal Cookies!

Today, I accidentally mixed up my Extra Strength Cold & Sinus Day pills for the nighttime ones. Gah!

No matter though, the great part of today was watching your friends and co-workers anihalate your the little baked labour of love cookies that you spend a couple hours slaving away over the day before while enjoying your first day of the real NFL season (even if Farve defected).

I originally made this recipe last Christmas, when I baked ten different variety of cookies, packed them all up into their own suitcase (there were that many) and hauled them back home for the holidays. These suckers stayed moist and chewy unrefrigerated for two weeks. Ok, in reality it was three, but in case I'm liable for the well being of my readers, I'll protect you and say two. Refrigirated if you must. (Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.)

Quit stallin', me. Here's the recipe which I found via some magical google search for oatmeal and coconut cookies and which I can no longer find a link for. All I know is that I found, I switcherooed two items, and ta-da...

the Food Monstar's Fruity Fruity Coconut Almond Oatmeal Cookies!

3 cups oatmeal flour (process Oatmeal/Quick Oats in blender/food processor until pulverized)

1/2 cup whole weat or all purpose flour

1 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt (optional) (why do recipes say optional?? I forgot to add it this time, but I'd usually straddle the optional line and put half in.)

1 cup toasted almonds, chopped (don't know how? raw alonds can be toasted at 350ish for about 8-10 minutes on a cookie sheet. They're ready when they have browned and smell delicious. Remove from oven, let cool.)

1 cup finely chopped dried fruits (mango, papaya, apricots, maybe kiwi, think about adding raisins and Thor will get you then and there. NO RAISINS!!!)

4 tbsp water

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup honey

16oz. can of crushed pineapple, partially drained

Wait, what? No butter? No. No butter. Here's how it all comes together.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients.

In a blender, mix water, vanilla, honey and pineapple.

Add to dry ingredients, mix until combined.

Drop by spoonfuls onto parchement lined cookie sheet. Cookies retain their shape when baking, so try to spread them pretty flat.

Bake for 14 minutes, remove from oven, yada yada yada the whole cookie cooling spiel. (Let sit for a few minutes on the pan and transfer to cookie cooling rack.) Reapeat!

These babies will not brown so much, please don't attempt to burn them. They're deceivingly delicious! Try them! The masses agree!

..And by masses I mean the friends that I begged to eat these. "I don't know.." some skeptically said.. then they went back for thirds and there were none. Ha! That'll teach em.

The marvels of Pita Pizza

Have I never posted anything about my staple summer food? Pita Pizza can be whipped up in a matter of minutes, fill you up with fresh summer seasonal ingredients without weighing you down. No more excuses to head outdoors and enjoy what Ottawa seems to be calling it's summer special:"SUMMER SPECIAL, BACK FOR ONE WEEK ONLY, ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN."

Pita sandwiches are good, but I prefer to lay it flat, use pizza sauce instead of mayo and bake it for 10 minutes in the oven. It's fantastic for those 'use what's left in the fridge' days.

In this edition:

Medium pita bread, sprayed on the underside with PAM or olive oil. If you're daring, sprinkled with garlic salt or your favorite spice combo.

Top with:

Pizza sauce

Deli turkey, prociutto & roast beef

Asperagus & green beens

Fresh parsley

Garlic, pepper, red pepper flakes

Add cheese at your own risk.

Assemble, carefully pop it in the oven directly on the rack at 375F, and remove once the pita bread has hardened enough to support the weight of the pizza, and veggies and meats have grilled.

Très simple!

Also good for breakfast, topped with thin fried omelette instead of veggie/meat.

All hail Japanese snacks!

Sometime (immediately) after BC came back from a month long stint in Japan many years ago, my world of snack knowledge expanded exponentially to include all things Japanese. Suddenly I knew that Pocari Sweat was not something you expel from your body after a mean run, Pocky was not the name for the sound Pilsbury Doughboy makes and that rice chips were no longer something my dad used to purchase at Bulk Barn.

Pocky was the instant hit for me; a thin bread stick coated with chocolate, and better yet, with dozens of simple and fancy varieties. I simply could not get enough. I tried every new flavour I laid eyes on, almost obsessively so, until the day I could no longer eat the white stuff (milk). That's about when I discovered Pretz.

Sure, chocolate is RAD, small portions of cookie-type bread stick covered in flavourful chocolate and sometimes nuts or swirls is RAD, but most often, milk chocolate are used and therefore forbidden. I had seen Pretz lying around the same section of the Asian grocery markets I visited, but with flavours like Tomato, Salad and Roast, I was not tempted. I mean, Roast flavour?? Is that beefy? chicken? pork? miscellaneous? What? OK, fine, what the heck, I caved for the roast flavour. It was delicious in fact, not at all something my grandmother would make. Wiki describes it as "butter, honey and coffee". Who wouldn't like that!? I was sold and became a Pretz convert there on after.

Here are the recent additions to my Pocky/Pretz collection:

Beer Pretz (Spicy Chicken) was good, but not all that finger lickin' good. Not a substitute. Should have been called "flavourful flavour".

Curry flavour!! So delish. I drop this one in a cup with the next flavour and roll the dice of flavours when I randomly grab one from the cup.

Corn flavour!!!! My number one. As my brother once said when he tasted it: "What the hell? It tastes exactly like corn." That's right, juicy, buttery, salted corn without the stuck bits in your teeth. Warning: Highly Addictive.

Mmmm.. Cappuccino? Or is that Double Double? At any rate, it was creamy goodness packed with the devil food (milk).

Blueberry Pocky!

Chocolate Banana Pocky! *the unfancy kind.

Honey & Milk Pocky!

Morning Time Pocky! Cornflakes, milk & yogurt, blueberry chips. In my top five.

Pumpkin flavour! Not so yum. Tasted like staleness dipped in honey. Too sweet, not enough spice and pie flavour. The worst. I mean it.

The long time sandwich

I attempted a fancy version of an after-swim meal on Friday, to be had before our actual swim. This crickety fancy sammich took way hey hey too long. I mean: two hours for cut up veggies, corn on the cob, a limp version of my sweet potato fries with garlic fakeaoli, and fancy nine ingredient sandy*? That is just nuts.

At least it was tasty.

1 large italian foccacia from La Botega, cut open and divided into three long sections.
in layers from bottom to top:
dijon
smoked turkey
thinly sliced tomatoes
spicy Nicastro's eggplants, lightly rinsed once and squeezed of excess oil/water.
poorly julienned carrots (julienne peeler=bad)
boston lettuce
finely grated old cheddar (lactose free as always)
S&P
mayo
Close sandwich, half, mangiare!

*Why call sandwiches sammies? Why not Sandies?

Corny Egg Sandwich

It's corn boil season folks, and I've just about had my fill. So what does one do with excess amounts of freshly cooked Peaches 'n Cream corn on the cob? Toss it in everything. Especially that egg salad pita sandwich you're craving. What? Nobody craves that? I'm answering my own questions now? I crave that, and yes, I also answer myself, much to everyone's annoyance.

The Food Monstar's Corny Egg Salad Sandwich
2 soft boiled eggs
1 cooked and cooled corn on the cob
1 juicy tomato
1 generous tbsp low-fat mayo (I choose no-fat Miracle Whip, I know it's not mayo)
1 tsp whole-grain dijon
1 - 2 tbsp finely chopped chives
2 tbsp finely grated old cheddar (lactose free for me)

freshly cracked black pepper
salt
dash of cayenne
dash of parsley

How to:
There are so many ways to cook eggs; I gently place eggs with a slotted spoon in boiling water for 7 minutes. If they happen to crack (I hate that), quickly take them out and rub with a lemon wedge all over, it'll seal the cracks.
If you're super fast you can prepare the rest of the ingredients in the time the eggs cook. I cannot, so I prepped.
Chop tomato, mix in a dash of salt, cracked pepper, and parsley.
Remove corn from cob by cutting with a sharp knife, cob standing up, from top to bottom. (insert pretend illustration here)
Chop the chives, grate the cheese.

OH! What's that challenger? You thought you could prep in time eh? Tick tock tick tock.. Seven minutes are up!! Quickly remove the eggs with slotted spoon and run under cold water to stop them from cooking.
Crack the shell by tapping it on the counter, cracking the whole surface of the egg, it makes it easier to peel if you're one of those guys who thinks the only thing they can cook is eggs, when in fact, they stuggle with even that. :P Also, I said "tapping" not "smashing" the egg on the counter. Nobody likes shell-surprise in their sandwich.
Mush the egg with a fork in a bowl, incorporate the mayo and mustard grains. Add tomato, corn, chives, cheese, more pepper and cayenne.

Spoon into your favorite bread. I used a lebanese pita and it filled both sides nicely. Might be enough for two regular bread sammies if you're a light eater and feel like sharing, or one helfty sandwich if you eat like me. (I eat like me.)

Oh.. if only I had Baconnaise!!!!!!!

A boiled frosting haiku

-- Fourteen Years Ago

I last ate you nostalgic

Boiled Frosting. Yum. --

That's the sorriest excuse for a haiku I've written, but it brings up a good point. Why aren't we eating more Boiled Frosting?

That light and sweet sticky frosting has been out of my life sinceI outgrew my nanny, or at least that's the last time I reall eating it.. until this past weekend. Queue heavenly gates opening and birthday boy's mom depositing this creation within reach of my needy index finger who was internally crying out for me to shout BLOW OUT THE CANDLE. CUT THE CAKE so I can take the plunge into your snowy caps already! "I want YOU!!", just like Veruca Salt begged in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Thankfully I've learned to control these sticky urges by keeping my finger on the shutter button until it's safe to eat without looking like Cookie Monster prior to his "cookies are a sometimes food" days.

How could I have forgotten about this purer than snow white frosting? These tastesbuds shall never forget again.

Hamburger Cupcakes!!

I read Serious Eats daily, so last week after following a link from Serious Eats to this Flickr photo set about how to make good looking cheeseburger cupcakes, I had my heart set on these trompe l'oeil burg bites hitting my stomach, like now.

I was planning on making them for a certain event on August 14th, but when he mentioned his love of cheesecakes I decided to bake these little bundles of cheesy joy for my own birthday on the 8th instead. But wait, the 8th was a couple weeks away.. the urgency to try a new recipe set in.. what if they don't turn out? Might as well have a trial run, it could even coincide with my work-friends b-days.. yes.. those are proper excuses for cupcake mania. Let's begin..

Bake Duncan Hines French Vanilla cake in muffin pans as per instructions, helped by loads of butter-PAM spray.
Repeat with Swiss Chocolate extra moist cake.
Slice the little white cupcakes in half, like a hamburger bun.
Repeat with Choco cake.
Add food coloring to Duncan Hines cream cheese frosting (this is a cheeseburger after all). You'll need loads of yellow coloring, and a couple drops of red. I aimed for a Cheez Whiz color instead of the neon American Cheese.
After softening, spread gently over Chocolate cupcake tops.
Add a skinny dribbly line of red icing in a tube.
Start layering and assembling as such, from top to bottom:

White cupcake top
Chocolate cupcake top, frosting side up
Dab of frosting (should be invisible once assembled, just so the layers stick to eachother)
White cupcake bottom.

Once assembled, pastry-brush a few drops of OJ on the top of the cupcakes and sprinkle a few sesame seeds. The seeds won't affect the taste if you're worried.

Four hours later..

I might have been talking about these for a couple days non-stop, but the look on people's faces as they inspected them was unsurpassed. "Who brought in a tray of burgers to the office?" "They look.. so... REAL!"

Clearly I have a thing for burgers, but I never expected these to have such a far-reach. One co-worker took some to her kids, two others to their boyfriends, this dude took some to his friends and some other friends shared one while I took pictures of the ketchup dribbling action.

Taste? Like cake, nothing unusual. The mind-trick took the whole experience to a new level. I've finally found a food that makes everyone as excited and smiley as I get when I talk about food. I've had a perma-smile since, at least half of it caused my the burgers. ;)

The rest of the Food Pourin' shots: