The Yum Yum Factor

Once again, a box of frozen puff pastry solved all of my problems. I wanted to bring a nice app to an summer poolside party but although it had to be pretty and delicious, it also had to be kind of quick and easy. Since, as always, I had a box of my favourite pre rolled puff pastry from PC in the freezer and a container of ricotta, it was obvious that I would make a little tart. A quick trip up to the Magical Asian produce store provided some nice yellow cocktail tomatoes, red cherry tomatoes and some Ontario asparagus. You can mix it up and use whatever bit of vegetable you have - it would be just as delicious with freshly shucked peas or leftover roasted vegetables, for instance. You can mix the ricotta hours ahead of time and if you can't find z'atar you can just sprinkle a bit of fresh thyme over the top but do try to find the z'atar because z'atar makes everything better. Tomato, Asparagus and Ricotta Tart makes 24 app servings or 12 large piece...

The only thing better than visiting a really nice winery is eating a fabulous lunch on a patio overlooking that really nice winery. Sadly, there are far too many really great looking wineries out there that serve underwhelming food. I want to be as wowed by my meal as I am by the wine that accompanies it and I will admit that I was not sure that my lunch at Southbrook Vineyards  was going to be able to knock my socks off but I was certainly happy to take a drive out to Niagara on the Lake and give it a try.  The winery and the vineyard are lovely and I have been there many times, perhaps to buy a bottle or ten of their delicious Framboise. I had not eaten anything here though and this visit was really about trying out their Farmer's Table menu. Starting in early June and ending on Thanksgiving weekend, the Farmer's Table @Southbrook is open from Thursday to Monday, from 11:30am to 5:00pm. Executive chef, Shawn Murphy has returned to Niagara after graduating f...

Sea Witch Fish and Chips funky lamps, comfortable, laid back interior with some interesting, nautical themed bits and bobs I get to go to a lot of media dinners and eat a lot of free food and I have to tell you, I eat more mediocre food than good food at these things. I usually only share the places that I am excited about because I prefer to share restaurants with people as opposed to "reviewing" them. With that in mind, I am thrilled to share Sea Witch with you. The small, neighbourhood restaurant is located on the hot little strip of St Clair West (just west of Bathurst) and it's been garnering rave reviews since the day it opened for it's small, simple and well executed menu. There are no bells and whistles, no 3 page menu attempting to make everyone happy, no fish tacos and , at this time anyway, no liquor license so not everyone is going to be thrilled with Sea Witch but people who want to eat really delicious, perfectly executed fish and c...

tapas lining the bar at Bar Raval Loblaws at 5am is not a sight I'd like to see again soon The week started off with three days in the Loblaw's kitchen. Last Thursday I taught a What's For Dinner class in the afternoon and started prepping for Friday morning's breakfast for 20 of the overnight staff and then came in at 5am to make that happen with the kitchen director, Kira. She stayed all day and night getting everything ready for our Saturday lunch for the 80 daytime employees and I returned on Saturday morning to help get the lunch together and feed almost 100 hungry people. Yonanas   Oh yeah! I had received a Yonanas machine last week when I was on death's door and so it sat, unopened for a week until I felt up to taking it for a test drive. If you live under a rock and haven't heard of this machine, it's a really easy to use machine that turns frozen fruit into, basically, ice cream but without the cream. You shove a couple of frozen...

Have I told you how much I enjoyed being in Portugal lately? Well, we all fell madly in love with Portugal. In fact, I loved it much more than I expected to and that surprised me. I have spent a lot of time in Spain and I think I assumed that Portugal would just kind of be like Spain-light but after spending a couple of weeks there, I know that this couldn't be further from the truth. Not only do they speak a completely different language, their music is different, their culture is very unique and their food is not Spanish at all.

The only thing thriving this week was my garden. The rain has transformed it into a thing of beauty There was very little yum in my week, my friends. The Kid and I woke up last Friday, sick as dogs, infected with the plague that our own patient zero, Shack, had brought into our home earlier in the week. Before we both totally fell apart, we drove to McDonalds for french fries because the ONLY time that I eat them is when I am too sick to eat anything else. Their crispy, salty goodness is what I crave when I am sick. After polishing off our fries, The Kid and I took to our beds, where we remained for the rest of the weekend. Saturday meant another order of fries and I think that was the only time I even sat up. The kid bounced back by Monday but these things don't work that way with me and so I spent the rest of the week feeling pretty crappy. Not bad enough to stay in bed, but bad enough that I couldn't eat anything other than watermelon and I didn't venture far from t...

I don't totally go out of my way to make food healthier, for the most part. We eat butter, lots of olive oil, all the meats and full fat milk and cream always has a place in my kitchen. We try to make sure that the largest slice of pie, in our diet pie chart, comes from whole foods, leaving room for the odd Dorito, Fresca and ramen. As long as we are eating mostly real food, I am pretty happy about what we are stuffing into our bellies. Okay, that said, it doesn't mean that I still don't look for ways to cut down on saturated fats or excessive white carbs like delicious pasta and white basmati rice when I feel like we have been over indulging. One striploin serves all of us, we can get three meals out of one roast chicken and apart from a bit of an ice cream problem, dessert is not something we see in this house very often.  In the grand scheme of things, as long as the flavour is not compromised, I am good with lightening up some of our favourite dishes and this is ...

So, it's supposedly summer. The fact that I spend my mornings wondering which coat I need to grab when I want to take my coffee on my front porch in the mornings tell me otherwise, but, whatever. In the spirit of pretending that it we are enjoying a balmy June, I give you a lighter, brighter version of one of our favourite soups, corn chowder.  I first published this recipe on NoReEats, the blog where three of us documented our year of never repeating a recipe, which, in retrospect, was insane, but this is a soup that I still often make during the summer when we are craving some corn chowder but don't want anything with heavy cream and bacon.  Thai Corn Chowder soup stock: 6 cups of chicken stock the cobs from 6 cobs of corn 2 stalks lemongrass, crushed 2 lime leaves handful of cilantro stalks Cut the corn from the cobs, put the corn in a bowl and set aside. The cobs will go into the stock pot. Bring the stock and the rest of the ingredients, along with ...

some of the amazing South Western Onario people I met at 2015 City Fare This was a really great week in Yum, I must say. I attended two really fantastic food/wine events that were both well organized, informative and lots of fun. 2015 City Fare  well, we look innocent enough..... just two moms, out having a glass of wine, nothing to see here people The best worst (and by worst I mean best) influencer I know, Libby Roach , was kind enough to invite Shack and I to tag along with her and Mr Roach last Saturday to an iYellow wine club event that celebrated the food and drink of Ontario's Southwest. iYellow wine club is a social group of wine lovers and they put on events, organize tours and host tastings where you will be introduced to a plethora of wines from all over the world while having a hoot. I have written about them the last time Libby took me to their Shiraz shindig - hmmmm, Libby, wine, drinking..... I am sensing a pattern here. We all ventured out i...