The Yum Yum Factor

Lamb chops, bit of olive oil, kosher salt, black pepper 145F for medium rare preheat for a couple minutes at 390F cook for about 8-10 minutes I had an air fryer once before. It was the size of a small spaceship so, even though it worked just fine, I had where to put it, it didn’t fit in any of my cupboards and I had to keep it in the garage. That means I never used it and to be honest, at that time, I thought they were only good for fries and chicken wings.  Gadget maven that I am, I also have a CrispLid for my Instant Pot and I love it too, although when I need to make, say, enough chicken wings for the three of us, I have to cook them in a couple of batches but for doing veggies, browning something I just pressure cooked (like a bread pudding or a whole chicken) and when it’s just one or two of us, the CrispLid is perfect. I didn’t even know I would want a larger capacity air fryer until I was offered a Ninja Air Fryer . I love my Ninja blender with a fierce, burning love and bec...

  I tried to make shakshuka for five days.  Day 1: ordered all the ingredients I needed online for delivery. Shit, can't get it til tomorrow. No problem, we will eat something else tonight but super excited for tomorrow's dinner Day 2: groceries come! Time to start.....oh, wait, what? You feel like ordering Thai? But I was...okay, Thai does sound like it would hit the spot. Shakshuka tomorrow, FOR SURE Day 3: make the shakshuka tomato/red pepper sauce in anticipation of tonight's shakshuka. Sit outside with my neighbours for a glass of wine and the next thing I know, we grab The Kid and venture on down to sit on the patio at The Pub. It's the only place that will let us take a table for 8 so we can sit at opposite ends of the table and their salt and pepper wings are really delicious..... Day 4: TODAY IS THE DAY. WE are making this damned shakshuka if it kills me, but first, a visit to drop off something to friends we haven't seen since January. Go to drop it off on...

Hello, fellow home sheltering peeps. It's been a looooong couple months, hasn't it? Where are we now, anyway? Is sourdough over? Have we started canning and panic buying all the Bell jars and pectin yet? I know that finding vegetable plants for me wee, city garden is probably going to be a hellscape, but hey, what can you do when you live in a shoe?  Aaaanyway, I have a few processed foods that I unabashedly love. I LOVE good instant ramen. I love to soup it up with poached egg, chili sauce, vegetables, leftover meat or seafood. Love it. I also love Campbells Everyday Gourmet Sweet Potato Tomatillo Soup. A big bowl of that with a grilled cheese to dip into it...ahhh. For some reason, and this precedes the pandemic so I know it's not soup panic hoarding, I haven't been able to find it for months. I had thrown some canned tomatillos in the freezer a few weeks ago and decided to try to recreate it at home. It's very weird for me to want to create a Campbe...

I know that this week is going to be cold thanks to some polar vortex that we can add to our global pandemic and the hot, new Murder Hornet situation, but go and check out the latest issue of Vitalize Magazine  where you can find my recipe for this Canadianized homage to one of my favourite restaurants, Mexico City staple, Contramar  (recipe starts on page 74). This herby, Salmon A La Talla with an easy salsa and yummy salad will put a spring in your step whether we are stuck in our apartment or lucky enough to have an outside space to enjoy a summery meal. Make yourself a big, icy gin and tonic with a slice or two of cucumber and put on some Grupo Firme (download anything you can find on Itunes or Spotify and thank me later). Little did I know that my last Contramar meal this past Christmas would be my last for what will most likely be a long time. It looks like I am going to have to start replicating lots of my favourite dishes here at home so keep an eye out for that ...

Yup, we are in the midst of a global pandemic. We are all spending way more time in our homes than usual and for some of us who are not working, that means ALL of our time in our homes. While I have watched all these people teach themselves how to knit, learn Mandarin, choreograph family dance routines and bake sourdough bread four times a day, I have been allowing myself to do nothing. Doing nothing is an option, by the way. Doing nothing has been my way of coping, of keeping myself calm and hold the zombie apocalypse fears at bay. We can't all be A type git' er done people and we all do what we need to do to stay sane. We are eating well but my guys really miss pizza and I am not super comfortable ordering it out. I am not at the full on paranoid, pressure washing my mail stage, but I do feel more comfortable ordering food that I can pour into my own pots and reheat, like Thai or Indian food. We have also had a couple of great meal kits from some of our favourite local r...

Use all of our great tech, facetime, video chats, take up an old hobby photo Bruce Mars So, I have not been blogging all that much as of late because I have been busy cooking, teaching other people to cook, travelling and writing about cooking and travelling. In fact, I was all packed and ready to go on a 2 week adventure to Northern Italy on Feb 24 when everything changed. By 8pm, the night before our flight to Paris (we were going to spend two days in Paris before catching a train to Turin where we would pick up a car so we could road trip), all of our hotels, the car rental and train tickets were cancelled an refunded - we did incur a small cancellation fee for the flights and the only hotel to refuse to refund, ironically, was our hotel in Venice, which was in the epicentre of the outbreak in Northern Italy. Our biggest fear, at that point, was getting stuck overseas in a quarantine or not being allowed back into Canada and we were leaving our 20 yr old son at home. Instead...

the open air restaurant,  Azul Historico  is one of the prettiest places to spend an evening New Year, new Week in Yum: Our first getaway of 2019 was a four day trip to Mexico City. Although I had been a few times a decade or three ago, it was Shack's first time. It took a couple of years to get him there but after that first, short trip, he loved it so much that when an opportunity to take another four day adventure came up a few weeks later, guess who chose Mexico City? the view of this sprawling mega city from the Hilton Reforma read my recommendations on what to do and see here   here  and here So, it seemed fitting that we started off 2019 in Mexico City so we might as well end it there too. We flew out of Toronto on Christmas morning, coming home on New Year's Day. Flying on Christmas Day is generally a pretty low key time as most people prefer to travel before or after Dec 25. After reading a ton of travel blogs, I came to the conclusi...