The Yum Yum Factor

I am reposting an old post from no reEATS onto this blog because I want to make it again and it deserves to be seen again. I can't stop thinking about this sandwich that I used to make when I first moved to Toronto at 20 and was just learning about food. For me, this sandwich was the height of fancy pants food snobbery and I always felt very smug and proud when I would make it for someone using an fresh croissant from a french bakery and cream cheese not from the grocery store but from the cheese shop in the market. It made me feel very continental and sophisticated and it was unlike anything I had ever eaten growing up. Of course, by the end of that year, I was actually living in Paris, eating real, mind blowing croissants and endless wheels of brie and other exotic, stinky cheeses and this sandwich faded from memory. It was exactly as I remembered it. The creaminess of the cheese is balanced perfectly with the tart, crispiness of the green apple and then that crunch of t...

We are still on our no carbs (read no wine, no fries, no sandwiches, no pizza or pasta prison diet) thing and I am really getting sick of chicken. On the plus side, Shack seems be back down to his fighting weight and I am finally showing some signs of improvement in and about the muffin top area so we are sticking to our guns - just please, no more chicken. It was clearly time to bust out some pork chops and although I love a good thick cut, bone in chop, these thinner centre cut loin chops are easier to cook and they are very lean. I took pity on The Kid and made him a bit of basmati rice since he actually needs his carbs now that he is 5'9" and still about 120 lbs and I worry that I am starving him as well. Mother's do worry. This was a tasty marinade and I think the buttermilk helps keep the meat nice and tender - it works for chicken so it must work for pork too, right? I left them overnight in the marinade which is always the best option if you can swing it. I at...

This is not rocket science but it is one of our favourite ways to eat cauliflower and I am always surprised when people tell me they have never roasted cauliflower. Even people who think they hate the stuff will eat it if it's roasted. We do it all sorts of ways, with different herbs and spices but my favourite is most simple - olive oil, curry powder and garlic. I always make a huge batch because I snack on it cold the next day and if you puree it you can add it to some mashed potatoes or turn it into soup or mix some of it with quinoa for a salad. Roasted Curried Cauliflower 1 head cauliflower Olive oil 1/2 tbls curry powder kosher salt a handful of garlic cloves Preheat the oven to 400F Wash your cauliflower and chop it into florets - if you are in a hurry, chop them up small but they cook better if you leave them a bit larger and roast it for a longer period of time. Put it in a big bowl and drizzle with some olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and the curry...

This week's Gastropost mission was to explore food on a stick. Everybody loves food on a stick and we have enjoyed some awesome examples of this in the last couple of weeks. They do deep fried breaded things like quail and pork at Gushi at Market 707   in Scadding Court - in fact, the word gushi means skewer in Japanese so if you want to try a bunch of deep fried things on a stick, get over there. pork on a stick from Gushi I also had an incredible grilled skewer of niagara peaches with scallops and a honey drizzle at the Supper Market  at Niagara on the Lake a couple of weeks ago. What I hadn't had all summer was a cocktail on a stick, one of my favourite things of all. Last week I made Shack some boozey watermelon lemonade with gin and recall thinking that they would make great booze pops at the time. I was out of lemons but lime goes even better with gin so I switched it up a bit and added some rosemary to the simple syrup - I figured the smell of rosema...

Back when I used to work on set doing makeup for tv commercials, I enjoyed a thing called Kraft Service. The Kraft Service people are responsible for feeding us all day and at the time, I didn't always appreciate them as I should have. The one thing I always loved though was our morning breakfast burrito (as long as they were using real eggs and not egg beaters. No offence to the fine people who make egg beaters but they are just not for me). I apologize to every Kraft person I have gave the gears to over the years because now that I no longer have people who make me breakfast and snacks and soup and cheese trays and cut up my fruit and put out trays of M&M's and jube jubes, I realize how wonderful you all were. My ass, on the other hand, never wants to see you again. Anyway, I had three corn tortillas left over from last night's calamari tacos and couldn't bear to throw them out so I made the Little Prince, which is what we call The Kid when we realize we...

Anyone who likes to eat tacos knows that anything you can think of putting in a taco shell is going to work so don't get bogged down with only using "mexican" taco fillings. You can use any kind of seafood or meat or chicken. If you are some sort of crazy vegetarian, feel free to use some tofu or some sort of chickpea thing - whatever. The Kid's favourite tacos are greek tacos where we use tzatziki and leftover shrimp from  Garides me feta. Asian flavours lend themselves to the flavour of the corn tortilla as well since they also use lots of lime, cilantro, garlic and hot chilis. Oh, and don't get me started on the delights of a breakfast taco full of fluffy scrambled eggs, pico de gallo, a bit of cheese and a dribble of buffalo chipotle sauce. I always like to say that I would eat dog poop if it came in a fresh corn tortilla and although I don't really advocate eating dog poop, I think you get the idea. I really like all manner of food wrapped up in...

I just learned about this Wednesday night  Supper Market  at the Market at the Village in the last few weeks and thought it sounded like a perfect thing to do on a hot summer night - drive out to Niagara on the Lake, eat some great food and then drive back to Toronto with the top down just as the day starts to cool off while the sun is setting. Today turned out to be that perfect day. It was actually a totally perfect day because it started with a trip to the AGO to see the Picasso exhibit and if you are from the area and you haven't seen it yet, you should hurry up because it's gone at the end of August!

So, Shack and I have been living a little too large since spring. He has taken a ton of time off work to hang out with us and so there have been lots of lunches out and late night pizzas,  too many pub nights and lots of afternoon movies with huge buttered popcorns. Now, he has to go back to work and I have to make sure that I can still fit into actual pants by TIFF in September so we have spent the last 10 days going clean - no pasta, no pizza, no rice, no bread, no wings and poutine, no wine or beer. Somehow, we have managed to have lots of fun together and nobody is dying of malnutrition. HE, of course, has already dropped at least 12 lbs and looks much slimmer. I, on the other hand, have not lost one ounce although my mother in law told me that I look MUCH less bloated. Thanks for that.

Shack loves coleslaw and I love to make things that he loves a bit healthier. Over the years, I have settled on this basic buttermilk dressing that is based on one I found in Cook's Illustrated,  but I do play with additions to the cabbage. Sometimes I add sliced fennel and some carrot, sometimes I might throw in some radish and use honey dijon or another flavoured mustard. The bottom line is that buttermilk is much healthier than a heavy mayonnaise based dressing and it's tangy and delicious and I do prefer it. Sometimes we like a vinegar based dressing but those are loaded with sugar so they aren't all that good for you either so I don't really make that at home. I do love to add raw, grated beets because after the salad sits for an hour in the fridge you are left with a really pretty, pink hued slaw and the earthy taste of the beet seems to really compliment the tangy buttermilk dressing - so does fennel when I go that route. Buttermilk Beet Slaw 1 ...