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Showing posts from November, 2013

The Week In Yum Nov23-28

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Oh my god, what a week of eating! I didn't cook much, apart from this delicious Korean Pulled Pork  which I have happily eaten for three days running,  but I certainly feel like I ate out often and well. As things go the way they often do around here, the kitchen is still without cupboard doors and all of the contents of my cupboards are in bags and boxes in my dining room so, frankly, I am impressed that I even managed the pork. It all started off with lunch with my friend, Kate, at Jatujak again. Loving this place. Nothing new to report here since I had the green curry chicken again except to say that it was just as good as the other few times so I am happy to report that it appears to be very consistent. We followed a late lunch/early dinner which I like to call Linner or Dunch (take your pick) with a trip next door to the Dollarama and on to Pier 1 where we blew our brains out on glitter xmas decorations. It was out of control people. this terrifying xmas hedgeho...

Korean Pulled Pork Take Two

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There is a small grocery store near my house that marks meat down every day so that they can make room for the day's new shipment. Most of the time the meat is still a good day or three from it's best by date and there is ALWAYS a pork shoulder or pork butt marked down. Every time I go in there it's like they crawled into my brain to see what kind of meat I want to find on sale that day. Last week I got some lamb stew meat for half price and chicken thighs for a song.  This particular pork butt was marked $5 off so how could I not buy it? I am unable to walk past a discounted chunk of pig. It is what it is. It's also gotten really cold and stupid out there so suddenly I find that my crock pot is calling to me. It also helps that my kitchen is STILL not all put back together so I can't get really exited about making anything that involves too many appliances or surface prep area. I feel like we are living in a dorm and relying on nothing but a rice cooker, a cro...

The Week in Yum Nov 15-22

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Last Friday, we couldn't agree on a place to eat dinner and found ourselves driving around aimlessly when it hit me -  Aprile Bambina Cucina  ! Shack will never say no their grilled caesar salad so when we can't figure out what we want to eat, this is one of those places that always solves our dilemma. It was almost full when we got there so it was lively enough to give it a nice, festive atmosphere but not so packed that we couldn't get in without a wait. Shack had the grilled caesar salad, as always, and it was just as delicious as ever. I think I have talked about it before but it really is so tasty. I love the smokiness that you get from the slight char on the wedge of romaine, then comes the saltiness of the crisp disc of pancetta, follwed by the creaminess tartness of the salad dressing and finished off with the crunch of the toasted slice of bread. LOVE I almost didn't order the tomato basil soup because it sounded kind of boring but I really wan...

Portuguese Corn Bread Stuffing Does a Turkey Good

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I LOVE turkey dinner, I love stuffing and I love stuffing that has been cooked inside the turkey. I know, I know, everyone says it's best to cook it outside of the turkey, call it dressing instead and stuff the turkey with aromatics but I don't care. That's not how I roll. I have been using Portuguese corn bread for at least 20 years or more now because it's so dense and heavy that it is the only bread that doesn't fall apart and turn to mush. It stays soft, moist and delicious but most of the bread cubes kind of retain their shape. I do tinker with it, sometimes adding nuts or chestnuts, leaving the cranberries out,  changing up the pancetta or crumbled italian sausage or chorizo, leaving meat out but I try to never change up the type of bread I use if I can help it. Portuguese Corn Bread Stuffing 1 loaf portuguese corn bread 2 stalks celery, finely chopped 1/2 fennel bulb, finely chopped 1/4 cup butter 1 leek, halved lengthwise and sliced 2 ...

The Week in Yum Nov 8-14 Crack Smoking Mayors, BBQ Ribs and The Wren, Oh My!

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Korean sweet red bean cake Okay, lets talk about the drunken, crack smoking, sexual bearcat in the room for all of us here in Toronto. Mayor McCracken, Rob Ford,  has dominated every second of news coverage all around the world, every late night comedy show and every inch of newspaper coverage. It is on everyone's minds and although I understand that there are still people who stand behind this inarticulate bully for reasons unknown to anyone I know, I vacillate between gleeful amusement and embarrassment and pity for this sad sack of a man and the family who are enabling him instead of forcing him to get help for his glaringly obvious trainwreck of a life. His most recent remarks about his sexual diet were almost enough to put me off sex AND eating for the rest of my days and it is nothing short of a miracle that can manage to do either of those things again. Thank god I am approaching 50 and can barely remember where I left my purse, never mind the fact that Mr Ford is get...

Pickled Rhubarb

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This past summer, a friend brought me over a bag of rhubarb. I made a couple of batches of rhubarb simple syrup but I still had a few cups of chopped rhubarb left and wasn't sure what to do with it. I really didn't want to bake with it because we had just polished off the rhubarb pie ice cream and the last thing I needed was more dessert lying around the house. Pickles Why couldn't they be pickled?

The Week In Yum Nov 1-7

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The Wren - look at that little surprise at the bottom of your beer glass This week, we went back to Ajisen  on Saturday with friends who were ramen virgins and I had the tom yum beef. It was just as good as last time which is encouraging because it means it is pretty consistent. I hate it when I eat somewhere and it's really good and then I go back a few times and it's never that good again. The ramen seemed to be a hit with the friends so everyone left full and happy.

Three Cheese Lasagna with Marcella's Marinara...Kind Of.

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So, recently, I finally made  Marcella Hazan's buttery tomato sauce and, unlike the other 98% of the food world, I didn't totally fall in love with it. I found it a bit too rich and buttery (if that can even happen) and missed the olive oil taste in my marinara. I didn't dislike it, I just didn't love it beyond all other sauces. What I did like was the silky texture the butter gave it and the ease of preparation and I wanted to try it again with less butter and some olive oil replacing the lost butter, finally settling on a ratio of 2 tbls butter/3 tbls of olive oil. This mix gave me the rich, silky texture but the olive oil flavour I was missing so much. Shack woke up on Sunday morning with a craving for cabbage rolls but, unfortunately, he didn't share that with me until early afternoon. Cabbage rolls are not something you can just whip on on a whim. My mom, who was famous in our family for a couple of dishes, made a mean cabbage roll and I miss them treme...

The Week in Yum Oct 25-31

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Oh, what a fine week in Yum it has been. It was off to a great start on Friday when I found a box of Nando's Piri Piri sauces on my doorstep just as I was about to make my lunch. My Bubble Chicken Vermicelli Soup quickly became my Piri Piri Bubble with Vermicelli Chicken Soup  .