The Yum Yum Factor

ATTENTION PLEASE MY FRIENDS: I don't know what is going on with blogger right now but it seems that my blog is possessed by demons that make my normal looking posts publish looking like they are all out of whack, the wrong colour font, the wrong size and, well the wrong font altogether. I am trying to figure out a way to work around this demonic possession but, for the moment, it is going to look like I have lost my mind and I ask for your forgiveness, your patience and a vial of holy water, a virgin goat and  these guys. Oh, and ask them to bring Chip All of my American friends are usually pretty disgusted when you describe the difference between a Bloody Mary and a Bloody Caesar to them. I didn't realize that Clamato juice was a Canadian thing at all until I was in my mid twenties and tried to order a caesar , probably in Miami, and nobody believed that we actually drank our vodka with tomato clam juice. Who can be happy with a vodka with plain old tomato juic...

This week's Gastropost challenge is to write about your favourite condiment and it couldn't be a more timely subject for me because I have fallen madly and deeply in love with the korean hot pepper paste,   gochujang . We are heavily into asian food but I have to admit, that I didn't know much about korean food beyond kimchi and bulgogi because we are too busy eating Japanese, Chinese and Thai food all the live long day.  Then, one day, we had lunch at This End Up  here in Toronto and I ordered the fried chicken thigh sandwich: FRIED CHICKEN THIGH - FRIED CHICKEN THIGH/ PICKLED CELERY AND CARROT/ ARUGULA/ GOCHUJANG SAUCE/ BLUE CHEESE SAUCE that's straight from the menu people. I thought I had died and gone to heaven and I don't even LIKE sandwiches. Then the chicken wings came out coated in this sticky red sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds. God golly, miss molly! What the hell was that flavour? It wasn't siracha - siracha who?? It...

Shack loves coleslaw and I love to make things that he loves a bit healthier. Over the years, I have settled on this basic buttermilk dressing that is based on one I found in Cook's Illustrated,  but I do play with additions to the cabbage. Sometimes I add sliced fennel and some carrot, sometimes I might throw in some radish and use honey dijon or another flavoured mustard. The bottom line is that buttermilk is much healthier than a heavy mayonnaise based dressing and it's tangy and delicious and I do prefer it. Sometimes we like a vinegar based dressing but those are loaded with sugar so they aren't all that good for you either so I don't really make that at home. I do love to add raw, grated beets because after the salad sits for an hour in the fridge you are left with a really pretty, pink hued slaw and the earthy taste of the beet seems to really compliment the tangy buttermilk dressing - so does fennel when I go that route. Buttermilk Beet Slaw 1 ...

My mom used to make a really fabulous soup that was full of stewing beef, tomatoes and cabbage and I never learned how to make it. I think my sister knows how but I never really paid enough attention because I was all about the fancy pants food and this was just a plain old soup to me. Now that she is gone, I really miss it and keep meaning to ask my sister if she can show me how mom made it but , of course, I keep forgetting. A container of leftover braised pot roast with espresso and balsamic  got me thinking that maybe I could make something like her soup with that because I am not crazy about pot roast in the first place and I really just made it for the boys and am always stumped with the leftovers. I was happy to find a use for it that was less pot roasty and more soupy. You can use less cabbage if you aren't crazy about cabbage but I love the stuff so I used quite a bit. I knew that there was beef, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots and celery but I couldn't reme...