The Yum Yum Factor

Okay, it's now officially fall and my kid wore his parka to school today so it's time to start up my Friday soup extravaganza. Since I already made my soup of the week and I posted it as my dinner on my other blog, no reEATS  I am kind of cheating by reposting it but I am not making soup again today since I am busy making cardamom dark chocolate truffles. I don't think anyone would begrudge me that pleasure just so I can squeeze in another soup which would only be a resentful pot of soup anyway. I will repost my soup here to get the ball rolling plus and this will bring me back to this blog in a regular way again. On no reEATS,  I have been dedicated to never repeating a dinner recipe for this entire year and I have to be honest, I have been struggling. That task has been so daunting at times that it has been all I can do to make sure that I make something photo worthy twice a week (three times a week every third week) that I have been woefully neglecting The Yum Yum Factor...

We woke up bright and early, got dressed and got out onto the street by 7:45 am.  The one nice thing about waking up that early is that we were greeted with the most beautiful sunrise, reflected in the glass of the new tower, 1WTC, that is being built  in the northwest corner of the World Trade Center site. We sat and looked at that for a while but neither of us wanted to miss one minute of precious time on our first full day exploring the city so we left in search of coffee and too see where the Wall Street Occupiers were camped out. As it turns out, they were basically right beside our hotel so we didn't have to look far. At that point there were only enough protesters to fill the small parkette with little spill over and it didn't seem like a big deal at all. They were all just waking up themselves so it looked like a sea of marathoners taking naps, wrapped in their metallic space blankets. The first thing I wanted to do was go to see the statue of Liberty because ...

I used to go to New York quite a bit in my younger years but it has been at least 20 years since my last visit and Shack had never been. We have kind of entertained the idea of going from time to time but we always ended up going somewhere else. We almost went last summer on our road trip to Newport but decided on Boston instead and then last Xmas, it was on the short list but New Orleans won out. This seemed like the perfect time to go. The fall weather is remarkable right now- New York can be really stinky and humid and terrible in the summer. The kid is old enough to leave home in the care of The Neighbours so we could actually go on our own which is something we have not done in the 12 1/2 years he has been in our possession and seeing that I barely saw Shack all summer due to his crazy work schedule, we jumped at the chance to get away. You don't know Shack but if you did you would understand that driving was the only acceptable way to get there. The car to Shack is what...

Okay, first for the highs. Last week I found myself in Chinatown and, as luck would have it, I had locked up my bike right across the street from the Kim Moon Bakery . When I first moved to the city almost 30 years ago, I was introduced to asian food in a huge way. Previously, my only experience with "oriental" food was a plate of chicken balls, fried rice and moo goo guy pan  with fortunes cookies for dessert. Pho Hung on Spadina, King Noodle and moon cakes from Kim Moon Bakery will always stand out in my mind as things that were proof that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Now, a million years later, I enjoy introducing my kid to all of these foods and places that make Toronto my favourite eating place in the world. Sadly, he didn't fall in love with pho the way I did and he prefers Japanese food to a big bowl of steaming soup with egg noodles and bbq duck, but one love we do share are double yolk red bean moon cakes from Kim Moon. These things are sweet but no...

The other day I bought a 3 lb bag of vidalia onions even though I had no idea what I was going to do with them. In the summer, we usually cook them on the grill, wrapped in foil with some olive oil and balsamic. Since Shack worked every day for the entire summer, we didn't bbq at all so I didn't eat any vidalias and got so exited when I saw them that I couldn't just leave them there in the store. I knew there had to be a way of turning them into some sort of jam and so I went on an internet search for a recipe that would fit the bill. I found some really great sounding chutneys and jams but this one, from The Funky Kitchen, was the closest to the recipe I had clunking around in my head. I made some changes and some additions and I am happy to say that the resulting marmalade is exactly what I was hoping for. It will be great on roasted meat, in paninis, on crackers with blue cheese or on pizza and crostini. It's sweet and a bit spicy and full of delicious rosemary...

I have not had one minute to cook anything for the last couple of weeks between working at the Toronto Film Festival, school starting up and life in general. Today, I was gifted with a glorious day off mid festival and so I after yoga, i set off to the grocery store to gets supplies for dinner and found some lovely, Ontario peaches and knew I had to make a little batch of jam with them. I had been planning to do a plum jam with cinnamon and crystallized ginger but didn't get around to it so I made some peach jam with the ginger instead. I knew I didn't want to bother with pectin and because it was such a small batch, I wouldn't bother with a water bath either. I would keep a jar and give the other jar to The Neighbours. After searching around, I found this recipe for Peach Vanilla Jam on Seasons and Suppers and decided to use it with a couple of tweaks. This recipe only makes a couple medium sized jars or one larger one but I like the idea of making a jar to eat inste...

I didn't have enough of any one fruit to do any fruit dedicated dessert so I turned to the kitchen sink of desserts again, the crisp. Since I am still all about Indian food after my Big Fat Hindu Wedding weekend, I knew that whatever I did, I would be adding cardamom to it. I needed something to serve after our dinner of Chorizo Sloppy Joes that wouldn't be terribly heavy or overly sweet. I can't tell you how much I am loving my Alton Brown crumble topping that I have been keeping in the fridge. Even if you only have a cup of fruit, you can turn it into a yummy crumble on a whim and have yourself a little sweet treat in the middle of the afternoon and nobody will ever even have to know. Peach, Fig and Raspberry Crisp with Cardamom 2 ripe peaches (i didn't bother to skin them) chopped 6 green figs, chopped about 1 cup of fresh raspberries juice from half a lemon the seeds from about 6 cardamom pods, crushed about 2 tbls brown sugar about 1/4 cup of cru...