The Yum Yum Factor

I am always looking for something fun to do during the summer. Look, as much as I love driving to Niagara to hit a few wineries and grab a bite, you can only do that so many times before you start to get bored of doing the same thing every weekend. On a beautiful summer weekend, heavy tourist traffic can turn a 45 minute drive into a 2 hour excursion and I just don't always want to taste wine, if you can imagine.

I love a good frittata but, for some reason, I never make them. There are only so many meals in a day and when you cook for a living, you are always making something new and that can mean that tried and true old favourites are forgotten until you are forced to make one and then you remember how much you miss them.

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...

Last week I attended The Grate Canadian Cheese Cook Off - Mac and Cheese edition, hosted by the Dairy Farmers of Canada. We got to watch as four Canadian chefs went head to head in an attempt to woo the judges with their unique, elevated interpretations of this classic comfort food. Top Chef Canada alumni and popular Calgary caterer,  Nicole Gomes, made a really interesting Apple Beer Mac and Cheese that was only narrowly edged out as my favourite by the Smoky Cauli-power Mac & Cheese whipped up by defending champion,Chef Andrew Farrell, Chef de Cuisine at Halifax restaurant, 2 Doors Down. He took top honours in 2014 with his Crispy Greens Mac & Cheese and he looked reluctant to give up his crown. Chef Thompson Tran ( BC's The Wooden Boat) took the best name with his Cod You Believe It's Shmoked Mac n' Cheese but it was ultimately Toronto's own Chef Alexandra Feswick (The Drake) who stole the trophy out from under Chef Farrell's nose with h...

When a company contacts me and asks me if I would like some cheese to play with, I am certainly not going to say no. Do I look crazy to you? Only a crazy person turns down free cheese. Armstrong cheese has been making Canadian cheese for over 100 years so they know a thing or two about making a good product. As soon as I tried the old cheddar, I knew what I would make with it. For an old cheddar, it's actually on the milder side and the texture is very smooth and creamy - some cheddars can be grainybut I could tell that this one was going to melt beautifully, and it did. If the cheese was too strongly flavoured, it would have overpowered the delicate flavour of the lobster but this cheddar let the lobster sing it's lobster song. Mac and cheese, baby. But not just any old mac and cheese. LOBSTER mac and cheese. Not just any lobster mac and cheese. PRESSURE COOKER lobster mac and cheese. I have been dying to make the pressure cooker mac and cheese from America...

Just in time for NYE, I am sharing not only a recipe for a great appetizer with you that will wow your friends and solidify your reputation as an amazing host, but a chance to win $25 worth of A rla Dofino Harvarti , a bamboo cheeseboard and cute, ceramic dry erase cheese markers. I make no secret of my love for frozen puff pastry, especially during the holidays so if you don't have any in your freezer, you need to do something about that STAT.  Come on, quick like a bunny - you still have a couple of days to get ready for New Years. For this particular turnover, I chose to use the creamy harvarti  because this appetizer required maximum melty creaminess and a mild flavour that would complement the savoury filling. For my cheese board, I went with the inferno (havarti packed with chipotle and habanero chili), smoked harvarti and roasted garlic. I would say that it was a close call but the inferno was the favourite at both of my Christmas parties with the smok...

One of the perks of this gig is that I often get the opportunity to try out all kind of products and  I make it a point to only accept things I already like or am already interested in trying. When I was asked to do something with some  Tre Stelle cheese  I wasn't about to turn that down, especially with a brand like Tre Stelle, that is a Canadian staple and a product line I already use all the time. Their extra smooth ricotta is almost always in my fridge. I guess I could just eat some and tell you what I think about it but that's not really how I roll, is it? Ever since enjoying my annual bowl of French Onion Soup from La Papillion after their Souper Bowl fundraiser, I have been craving more ooey, gooey Swiss cheese. As always, there are constantly disjointed ideas festering around in my brain that don't always make sense for ages until that magic moment where it all comes together, usually at the most inconvenient times. This time, I was lying in bed, just a...

I live in the far reaches of Toronto's east end so to get me to make my way to the far reaches of the west end requires something special to tempt me out of my lair. The Workshop By Latitude was just that kind of place. A restaurant that is focused on cheese, beer and wine with a resident cheese master on site? Rumours of cheese soaked in beer for months?  Oh yes, that will get me out to the west end.

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...

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...

I have had amazing luck with my herb garden this year so I kind of almost keep forgetting about it. In the past I grow everything in pots and they do okay but this year it's like a mutant steroid farm out there and I just can't use all the herbs fast enough. I am not worried about the 400 lbs of oregano, thyme and rosemary since they all dry really well but the basil either had to be consumed this weekend or it was going to go to pot so I had no choice but to make some pesto. I like a traditional pesto well enough but I like to change it up all the time. I love to add arugula, change the nuts and throw in something to give it a bit of heat. I almost never use pine nuts since I was attacked by them during the great PINE MOUTH EPISODE . I was part of a year long experiment where two friends and I documented our year of never repeating a recipe. I will tell you right now that even though I think of myself as a very good, adventurous home cook who thrives on variety, h...

As always, one of the best perks that come from food blogging is getting to try all kinds of food that you might not normally get around to checking out. We get invited to events, we are sent samples and given vouchers to purchase different things. This is one of those times so let's get it out there and make sure I tell you that I was asked to try this cheese by Castello right up front.

Okay people, the holidays are quickly approaching and that means people dropping by with gifts and lovely bottles of wine to share and you need to be prepared. In the olden days, I would make fussy appetizers and hor d 'oeuvres that would require hours in the kitchen and would often take me away from my guests. The oohs and ahhs were good for the ego but I realized that just as I was ready to sit down and relax, my friends were getting their coats on to leave. I thought it was more important to wow them than to sit and have a glass of wine with them but with age comes wisdom and with wisdom comes a much more enjoyable, relaxed holiday season.  What I do now is make sure my fridge is stocked with a variety of nice cheeses, a couple of nice charcuterie items like pate, sliced italian salamis etc and spicy, savoury jams.jellies  and chutneys.  This way, I feel like I can invite friends over last minute without having to worry about what I am going to serve the...

I'm really turning into a sandwich person. I still don't like them totally loaded down with oodles of gooey cheese but I am actually enjoying all of these grilled cheese variations, which has taken me by surprise. I will miss April, month of the grilled cheese because it has been fun. I look forward to months of grilling and salads and charred things but at least now I have added a whole new catagory to our dinner choices and I have something new to do with all that leftover grilled meat this summer apart from my go to vietnameseish noodle thing or feeding it to the dog (sorry Reno) Cheesey Turkey Panini makes two big sandwiches pesto mayo: 2 tbls mayonnaise 1 tbls sundried tomato pesto 1 clove mashed, roasted garlic (i did my garlic with the caramelized onions) 2 chiabata buns tomato pesto mayo thinly sliced tomato 100 grams of sliced swiss cheese 100 grams of sweet mustard coated roast turkey 1 small onion, thinly sliced and caramelized along with 1 huge ...