The Yum Yum Factor

I really love the scorching hot, Peruvian, yellow hot pepper called aji amarillo. It really has a unique flavour and the bright yellow colour makes everything it touches look really pretty which, in turn, makes everything it touches taste great. If you look good, you feel good. I was introduced to this spicy little devil by our good friend, the MVP (Most Valuable Peruvian) when he made us papa a la huancaina. I watched him make this very traditional dish for us and, at the time, I was dying a little inside because all I was seeing was a bunch of bland, white food. Boiled, sliced potatoes, sliced hard boiled eggs, a bowl of queso fresco and some milk - omg, how was I going to eat this without making my bad face? The worst part was how exited he was for us to taste  this special dish that he was clearly infusing with unadulterated Peruvian love. He put the cheese, milk and some of these frozen aji amarillo peppers in the blender as he told us that it is virtually impossi...

This has not been a week of yum but a week of sad. If you read my blog, you have probably heard the odd story about our crazy dog, Reno. If you actually know me and follow me on facebook, you have definitely read about her. She has been our faithful, loving companion for over 10 years since we rescued her at the age of 2ish from death row when my giant son was only a tiny four year old boy. It was a rough start because she was totally off her rocker (which is why nobody else wanted to adopt her and she was slated for the gas chamber) and it took a lot of hard work on the part of our family and her wonderful vet, tons of money and lots of experiments with different drugs until we found out that a healthy daily dose of human prozac was the only thing that turned her into something resembling a normal dog. After 2 pretty relaxed years with her, she had her first seizure while we were visiting family 3 hours away and in grand Reno style, she didn't just have one seizure, she ha...

I realize that summer is on the way out the door and it's probably a bit late to be busting out another burger recipe now. Where was this tasty turkey burger recipe a month ago, huh?? Well, this has been a weird summer for us and we haven't even grilled all that much. The weather has been wacky, Shack has been working too much and we have been on a terrible eating schedule with too many days of super late lunches and then no real dinners. Better late than never though. I don't know where the original recipe for these things came from so I can't give credit because I have been making them and tweaking the original recipe for years. For the most part, I have a hard time selling a poultry burger to Shack. He likes his burgers out of freshly ground beef with nothing but a good whack of salt and always says turkey burgers are dry. Of course, every time I make these ( I never actually tell him we are having turkey burgers before hand so he can't complain...

chocolate caramel treat from Devonne Sitzer @ Le Catrin After last week's week in Yuck, anything is going to look like an improvement but this week really was much better. For starters, although my asthma means that the previous week's plague is still making me cough my head off, I am no longer sick and that is fantastic. I have managed to NOT gain back the five pounds I lost while being sick and that is fantastic as well. I also got to have dinner at my favourite thai restaurant, The Salad King , with my good friend Liz and that was doubly fantastic. As Liz said afterwards  "   I think it tastes better when you pay for it. We attacked that food like we were savage beasts. " If you have not eaten at The Salad King before and you like thai food, I suggest you run right out this week and fix that problem. Because it was just the two of us, we didn't have to wimp out either and we had FIVE CHILI (rated Watch Out on the menu) green curry chicken and pad thai....

I grew up in London, Ontario which always felt like the Land of Corn to me. We took all of that abundant, sweet, peaches and cream corn for granted and we ate it at ever single meal from the first day it showed up at the store until the very last cobs were snatched up in early fall. My mom never did anything fancy with it, we just ate lightly boiled, buttered and salted corn on the cob. A 1 pound block of butter was set aside and sat out on the table just for rolling your corn in and if you had delicate fingers you could use those little corn on the cob holders that actually looked like tiny, plastic corn on the cob.Believe it or not, my dad had no teeth and that man could destroy a buttery cob of corn like it was nobody's business and barely leave a kernel on the cob when he was done with it. True story. It's coming to the end of corn season so we need to find ways to enjoy the last of it. I had already grilled the corn for my charred corn/scallion salsa so that was alre...

I wrote a post about ten lunch ideas for those of us with kids who aren't picky and who like to take a hot lunch to school. In order to put my money where my mouth is, I realized that I couldn't make his very first lunch for his very first day of high school a boring old smoked meat sandwich like I was kind of wanting to do. Instead I practiced what I preach and I made Vietnamese BBQ for dinner the night before so he could take it for lunch the next day. Okay, so I also made it because i LOVE to eat it myself but still, If I am going to get back into the swing of things, that is going to have include not only cooking dinner every night but doing that with an eye towards The Kid's lunch the next day. This is a regular staple around here and I have published this recipe before on my old blog, NoReEats. I have been combing the archives over there more lately and I am going to regularly start reposting the recipes that stuck that I am still making now a couple of years ...

my Lindt Angels provided me with the only food of the day at TIFF On Saturday I worked TIFF which usually equals famine I  but ate lots of yummy food at my neice's 1 year birthday party later that evening. My brother in law is a master in the kitchen and he fed everyone until they couldn't move.

greek oregano in olive oil I know we are all sad that summer is coming to an end. After this weekend, The Kid starts high school, I start working on TIFF and Shack will most likely start working on whatever movie he is working on until after Christmas. We will settle into a routine and it will all be fine but today, as I stood in my garden with a pair of scissors and a big bowl, harvesting my herbs, I wanted to roll up into a ball and throw a massive tantrum. I don't want to stop wearing flip flops. I don't want to wear pants or cute jackets - okay, I am kind of ready for jeans and cute jackets but that's it. I love summer and this day signifies the impending end to hot summer nights drinking wine on the porch so I hate it. I HATE YOU TODAY.

It's time for my monthly post for  The Great Canadian Food Experience Project  where Canadian bloggers from across our nation write about a different subject each month. This month we are sharing our cherished canadian recipes. As I have said before, I didn't grow up eating anything particularly Canadian or worth sharing so it wasn't until I moved to Montreal that I discovered this regional cooking thing. I will be honest and admit that I lived there for over two years before I tried poutine. I was super health conscious and rarely ate fried foods or junk food and I kind of thought poutine sounded disgusting. Of course, one night - well wee hours of the morning really- after a couple of drinks I was convinced to try my friend's poutine. Holy life changing experience batman. I am so happy that poutine has become "a thing" and you can find it everywhere now. You can find super fancy pants, gourmet poutine with stewed lamb shank , artisan virgin goat mil...

Friday night back to Xola in The Beach. I so want this place to thrive and stay in the beach and it warms my heart to see it packed every evening so I really hope that they are getting repeat business. I have been three times and each time there was something wrong and that breaks me heart. Last night I had to send my margarita back because it was so sour I couldn't drink it and at $9/drink, I want to be able to love it. The sangria I got instead was so delicious that if I were alone I might have ordered a pitcher to myself and called it dinner but I really hate having to send something back and it starts things off on a bad footing. The food was great and the portions are enough for me but The Kid and Shack both left hungry - maybe if they threw in the rice and black beans which cost next to nothing to make, it would round the meal out and make it more filling. As it stands now, adding rice and beans will ding me $4, added to the $15  tacos and if you want more tortillas (some...

Even though The Kid is going into grade 9 and could probably make his own lunches by now, I still enjoy doing it. Until he started grade 7 he ate a hot lunch at school so I have really only being doing the daily packed lunch thing for 2 years and I haven't had a chance to burn out. That is probably the only reason why I don't abhor the grind of packing a lunch to be honest. Even if you are sick of it, these kids have to eat so I like to make it a bit easier on myself.

It's September and school starts in two days so all of sudden, I have ten months of packed lunches looming ahead of me. I am fortunate that my kid will eat just about anything I make for him so I can have a bit of fun with his lunches, use up bits of leftovers and not get all stressed out about it. If that wasn't the case, he would totally be packing his own lunch by now but because I still enjoy doing it, I will continue to feed him during high school. I am combing through all of my old posts for inspiration and found  this one which was originally posted on NoReEats, my year long experiment of never repeating a recipe. This recipe was posted in August of 2011 on that blog and I have updated the photos and tweaked the recipe a bit to put it here. One of The Kid's favourite snacks is something called onigiri and it is a great thing to send in his lunch. I can make it before bedtime and pack it up the next morning. For this batch, I had some leftover curry c...