The Yum Yum Factor

What do you do with three cups of leftover risotto al nero de seppia ? Make arancini, of course. Although everyone in the house loves these crispy little risotto balls, I rarely make them because, frankly, I am still terrified of deep frying. The odd time I make them, I either bake them or pan fry them in a shallow pan with a bit of oil and although good, they aren't amazing. To really enjoy an arancini, you need the crispy crust that you crack to reveal the soft, creamy rice innards and you can really only get that crust by deep frying them. Now that I am 50, I have decided it is high time to face some of my fears in the face so I pulled out a small pot, a bottle of canola oil and my instant read thermometer and did what needed to be done. I am not going to tell you that it was a walk in the park, emotionally, but I buckled down and heated that damned oil all the way to 350F and deep fried these arancini like a boss. The panko adds a bit more substance to the coating but...

It was not only Easter weekend, but the birthday weekend for The Kid so there was a whole lot of eating going on. The first stop on our birthday weekend culinary extravaganza was a visit to Luckee , Susar Lee's brand spanking new Chinese restaurant in the Soho Metropolitan Hotel on Wellington. You know, I don't think that Susar Lee has ever actually served straight up Chinese food in the city before? The first time I ate at one of his restaurants was a million years ago at Lotus, his first, tiny restaurant located in an old house downtown. It was the late 80's and I was in my early twenties and knew NOTHING about fine dining. I would save up my pennies, make a reservation for 1, get all dressed up and go there alone to enjoy a meal like nothing I had ever tasted. I had my first taste of lamb at Lotus. I dined alone because nobody I knew would spend that kind of money on dinner and although I didn't really understand what I was eating, I knew it was special and it...

It was the The Kid's 15th birthday and I think I have made it pretty clear that when somebody celebrates a birthday in this house, it's allllll about days of eating whatever the birthday person wants to eat. From our Saturday dim sum feast at Luckee, through to his Saturday night, adult free, all you can eat sushi dinner with a group of his friends all the way to the actual birthday dinner, The Kid got to eat whatever his little heart desired. It also so happens that Easter fell the day before his birthday this year, so a turkey dinner was thrown in there for good measure. At first, he just requested risotto with either pumpkin pie or a raspberry pie. I got a pumpkin pie for Easter dinner and he was the only one to eat it so the same pie was going to have to do as his birthday dessert and he was A Okay with that but I couldn't pin him down as far as kind of risotto. He said "just plain risotto" I am NOT making a big bowl of plain risotto for his birthd...

my first bloody caesar made with gin and a flourish at the Gastropost Party at  Osteria dei Ganzi This was a lean week, especially in comparison to past weeks where it feels like I barely have time to walk and talk with all the food in mouth stuffery. Really, this is actually a good thing because even I can't just keep eating out every day without some sort of consequences and a week of grazing here and there certainly isn't going to kill me. The boys went away for the weekend without me so that they could have some male bonding time. Shack has been working on the new Guillermo del Toro movie and they were shooting a scene in Kingston so he grabbed The Kid and off they went in search of adventure.

After I make ham for Easter I am always left with this big, meaty bone and a meaty bone means soup. It's always a toss up between black bean soup or split pea soup because we all love them equally. What with the lentil contest last month, I have been all about the lentils lately so split peas won out this time and I ended up making a straight up, old fashioned split pea soup.  My grandmother made an insanely good pea soup and my mom said that growing up in her very Catholic household, they ate pea soup and fish every Friday. I didn't have the heart to tell her that pea soup that includes a big old hambone does NOT qualify as meatless but then I realized that vegetarian back then only meant that you didn't plunk an actual hunk of meat on the dinner table. If you only used meat in the broth, you were good to go for Friday so meaty soup and fish was the go to meatless meal in most French Canadian homes.  The only thing I did that differed from the split soup I wou...

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love making risotto and to me, it's something I often resort to when I am out of food, have no ideas and if dinner isn't served within the hour, I am going to have children's services knocking at my door. I know that to some people it is an intimidating, special occasion dish but to me, it's cooking for dummies. At it's most desperate - I mean simple, it's just a cup or so of arborio rice, whatever vegetable I find lying at the bottom of the crisper, scrape the ice off of a handful of frozen shrimp or the last dregs from the bag of peas that I found when I was scrounging around in the freezer for the shrimp, a carton of low sodium chicken broth, a bit of butter and fresh parmesan and dinner is on the table in half an hour. Out of white wine? Use some beer or port or sherry or skip that part altogether.  Sure, you are chained to the stove for 20 minutes of constant stirring but that also means you are forced to drink the wh...

OG Fried Chicken and Pickled Watermelon at the Patios Popup  spekulas butter pancakes fit for a young king who doesn't have to worry about things like spekulas butter On Saturday we had one of those days where The Kid got up late, we ran around doing things and suddenly realized it was mid afternoon and nobody had eaten yet (apart from The Kid and his spekulas pancake). Yes, even in this family we often forget to eat. The only solution was to retreat to one of our favourite neighbourhood haunts, The Wren , on the The Danforth. The Kid had the calamari sandwich, just like he has for the last couple of visits and Shack had a burger but I wanted to try something new. I ordered the Green Chili Chicken, which turned out to be a nicely spicy, soupy stew of chicken, onion and mushrooms, topped with salsa, sour cream and guacamole. I wasn't loving the grilled flatbread that came with it and next time I will order it and ask for tortilla chips on the side instead. It wa...

The only thing more Canadian than clamato juice is maybe beaver tails, Molson Canadian and maple syrup even though up until now, Clamato juice automatically has meant  US based Mott's Clamato Juice. When you go to the States and try to order a bloody Caesar, you tell them it's basically a bloody mary but with clamato juice instead of tomato. Then, you have to explain what clamato juice is and then the groans and gags start. CLAM JUICE???? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? If you sat one of those naysayers down and served them a proper bloody caesar without revealing the wonders of clamato to them, I am positive that they would drink their glass dry without a second thought. I can understand that it's hard to get past the clam juice in a cocktail thing but I grew up drinking clamato juice and I love it, straight up on ice, in a cocktail or as a virgin caesar. I am more about the clamato than the vodka, frankly. Now, as a person who cares about what they eat and tries to avoid pre...

a million tulips from my friend, PJ Saturday was my birthday. Not just any birthday either because on Saturday, I turned 50 for god's sake. FIFTY birthday gifts and my beloved Neighours decorated my door There I am, sitting at the half century mark and how do I choose to celebrate? Do I go for a huge party where we gather all of my friends, past and present and drink champagne till the sun comes up? Do I demand to be flown to NYC so that I can be standing on the top of the Empire State Building at the stroke of midnight and howl into the wind "YOU KNOW NOTHING JOHN SNOW!"

In conjunction with my Misura giveaway , I was given the task of coming up with a recipe featuring some of their products. As soon as I saw this sedani pasta, I knew what I wanted to make immediately and so they sent me some pasta and a bag of whole wheat rusks, which are perfect for bread crumb making. Back when I first started blogging, one of my first dishes was a chili verde lasagna . One  of the reasons I started blogging in the first place was to participate in my friend's month long lasagna challenge. Jen, from Piccante Dolce , was hosting this challenge and she encouraged me to start food blogging so I took that opportunity to try the whole thing out back in November of 2010. Clearly, it worked out well because here I am, carrying the torch, although Jen has taken some time off to start a family. The other dish I made for this challenge was pastitsio , which is kind of like Greek lasagna. For years I have been toying with the idea of doing a bunch of fusion style pastit...