The Yum Yum Factor

Oh my, what a spring/summer I have had. For the last year I have been working as a hired gun, cooking for a local caterer, teaching classes as well as hosting pop ups and private dinners around Toronto.  To be honest, I have had a hard time balancing this new schedule so it was not a huge surprise when i fell ill, mid April. What was not expected was spending  6 weeks on my ass with a lung infection followed by a family situation that took me away from home for the last month. At this point, I kind of feel like a brand new, baby blogger, brimming with fun ideas for some new, tasty treats and I have promised myself I will slow down a bit and make time for The Yum Yum Factor as well as washing my hair regularly and eating while sitting down. First up are these Spicy Koreanish Meatballs that I served with this addictive  Kimchi Fried Rice by fellow blogger, Diversivore  . These babies are sooooooooo good. The sugar/chili pepper coating is a spin on my ...

I lived in Madrid a million years ago when I was in my twenties and I admit it - I was a tortilla addict. I ate tortilla in the morning. I ate tortilla mid morning. I ate tortilla at lunch, at dinner and again in the evening as a tapa. I also gained an alarming amount of weight which only made sense AFTER I watched somebody making it. Potatoes cooking away in a big pan of simmering oil was all I needed to see to understand why my steady diet of tortilla and beer was also responsible for my waist white wall tire. DOH. After I got home, I could never get the hang of making it myself, almost always resorting to just popping it in the oven to cook the top instead of flipping it because it constantly fell apart. I understand that this was also probably because I was constantly trying to lighten it up, make it a bit less fattening and leaner so I could eat more of it, more often. I have now given up on that and I am making it properly - poaching the potatoes in plenty of olive o...

If you like ceviche, you are going to love aguachile.  A true aguachile (chile water) from the Sinaloa region of Mexico, at it's most basic, is made by pouring a spicy puree of chiles and water over raw shrimp, some red onion, radish and cucumber. From there, people add cilantro, lime juice and more but, unlike ceviche, you are going to eat it when the shrimp are still pretty raw - sort of like a spicy, Mexican shrimp sashimi. This requires ridiculously fresh, sushi grade seafood and since that is not always available to us, I like to use cooked seafood (or, you can marinate the raw shrimp/fish in lime juice for an hour or so in advance as you would for a traditional ceviche before adding the aguachile for serving). If you don't like octopus, you can substitute any seafood you like - if you don't want to eat it raw, cook it lightly beforehand. I am not sure I would use $$$ sushi grade tuna, for example, only because its so expensive and this sauce is very s...

You all know how I love a show stopper and this one is a spectacular dish to serve the next time you have your boss/mother in law/new paramour over for dinner. Crispy, spicy little rice cakes with a centre of melty cheese, nestled in an acidic tomato vinaigrette and topped with a dollop of spicy yellow pepper/cheese sauce with a smattering of pickled red pepper, this baby is not only really delicious, it is a beautiful dish to behold. Maybe you have never had Peruvian food and you don't recognize some of these ingredients but they are so tasty that you need to get to know them. If you are not lucky enough to have a good, South American grocer nearby, these sauces are all available online and I have provide links to my Amazon store (yes, I get a few pennies if you buy things via my links) but there are also lots of online stores to purchase Peruvian items from. So, this is just my basic Pressure Cooker Risotto with the addition of the spicy pepper paste, aji am...

I made some really delicious Manchego Stuffed Meatballs with Romesco recently to serve as tapas style appetizer. In fact, they have been such a huge hit that when I found out that Mushrooms Canada was holding their annual mushroom appetizer contest for the members of the Food Bloggers of Canada, I looked no further, although it required a bit of tweaking. The original recipe called for serving meatballs on a plate, sitting on a thick smear of romesco, the Spanish sauce made from almonds, bread, olive oil and roasted peppers. Don't get me wrong, I love serving them like this but it really only works when we are actually sitting down to dinner as the whole idea is that you spear one with a fork and drag it through the sauce on it's way to your plate. For this contest, I know they are looking for an appetizer that can be eaten out of hand so what could make more sense than using an actual mushroom cap as a little bed for the meatball right? It's not like ...

I am on a mission to come up with a bunch of tapas style dishes that I can whip up for my summer entertaining because although I love to have guests over, I get in trouble for spending too much time in the kitchen while they are here. I have vowed to serve fewer items, served at room temperature or cold and that require very little last minute prep. Your guests want you to spend time with them, not leave them alone while you make magic happen in the kitchen, right? One quick search of this blog will tell you two things: I LOVE a meatball and I love to add mushrooms to my ground meat a la Blend and Extend. Inspired by my most recent  recent farm tour with Mushrooms Canada and Ontario Beef  , I couldn't stop thinking about doing a meatball stuffed with a bit of Manchego and served on a smear of spicy Romesco sauce. It's all the flavours of Spain that I love - nutty manchego cheese, garlic, smoked paprika and the ubiquitous, slightly chunky romesco sits somewhere be...

this version was topped with a bit of red onion and more sesame seeds  It is no secret that we love ceviche around here but I only have a couple of actual recipes on the blog because, for the most part, I make straight up, Mexican style ceviche and the only thing that usually changes is the type of seafood I use. I always use raw fish, scallops or shrimp and let it "cook" in lime juice and although none of us have any issues about eating seafood prepared this way, many people still view it as raw and don't want to try it.

The weather has been so lovely this week and suddenly,  February feel more like March so I am having a hard time getting excited about making more stick to the ribs weekly specials at The Kingston Social. My brain is all about spring and sun and the need to be warm so all I want to eat is ceviche and fish and salad, drink Gin and Tonics on the porch and pretend it's time to start on the garden. With that in mind, I looked to North Africa for inspiration after making some carrots roasted with ras el hanout, a Moroccan spice blend, during my last cooking class at Loblaws. Ras el Hanout (means head of the shop or top shelf in Arabic) = North Africa = chermoula and chermoula = some type of seafood and since my latest obsession happens to be sous vide shrimp, a dish was born. You might think it silly to cook shrimp using sous vide when they already cook in minutes on the stove top but sous vide results in the most amazing texture. Since I intended to almost pickle the shrimp...

This post is sponsored by   Persimon®  It's November and that means it's Persimmon season which also means it's time for  Persimon®  persimmons (Rojo Brillante) all the way from  Ribera del Xúquer in Spain. These particular fruit, known for their firm flesh and mild flavour, are ripe and ready to eat by the time they hit the grocery store, unlike other varieties  like the Hachiya which have to soften and ripen before they can be consumed. By getting these, you are taking the guess work out of it.  You will be able to find these in the store from now until February or until they run out of stock, so hurry up and grab a case or two while you can. Last year, I made a  Tarte Tartin  with my haul so this year,  Persimon® invited me to take part in their black box challenge, which is kind of like Chopped but I get to participate in my pjs in the comfort of my own kitchen. They send a bunch of bloggers a mystery box full of Spa...

Poor Shack. Two of the things that he loves the most are things I almost never make for him - veal parmesan and arancini. To make arancini, you need to have cold, leftover risotto but, trust me, if I am going to stand over a stove, stirring rice, for half an hour, I am not going to put it all aside to use for fried rice balls. Occasionally, I might have gone out of my way to double the recipe so that I could make these the next day but, honestly,  that often just resulted in gluttony. We were left with all of us rolling around the house, moaning and groaning, with too much food in our bellies and still not enough leftover rice. Enter my Instant Pot. Since making my first batch of risotto in the pressure cooker, I have not looked back. I was the last person who wanted to believe that you could end up with a risotto that was indistinguishable from a lovingly stirred pan of soupy rice but, here I am, making risotto in the pressure cooker all the live long day...