The Yum Yum Factor

I can't take any more snow. I am sick to death of my parka and my boots and if I never eat another stew or casserole it will still be too soon. If I stay indoors on a day like today, I can just pretend it's a beautiful spring afternoon. The sun is shining and the house is full of light and feels warm and lovely so I decided to cook something that felt like summer. I have been eyeing this Emeril recipe for a grilled pork loin with orange juice, cumin and cilantro for some time and today just felt like the day. Because I wanted to make it just a bit more substantial, I stuffed it with a mixture of couscous, onion, garlic, pancetta, pumpkin seeds and a bit of arugula.

Today, I made something that I never, ever thought I would make. It is something that i have never eaten and have never wanted to eat. The Food Network Canada cooking club challenge for March is a tuna noodle casserole and to be honest, everything about tuna noodle casserole makes me queasy. Hot canned tuna in a creamy sauce just doesn't do it for me. At all. We don't even really do mac and cheese and I think it's just that I don't really like casseroles in general. On the other hand, I really like the monthly cooking club challenges and although I have clearly put it off as long as possible, it was now or never since March will be over before we know it. I mentioned making it last night and found out that even Shack had never eaten tuna noodle casserole but he was willing to try it. I had toyed with the idea of getting a piece of real tuna and searing it and doing something with that but what if we all hated it? How bitter would I be if I wasted a 20 dollar pie...

I think I am over soup for now because all I can think about are salads. I want crunch, I want some sour, I want spring freshness and light dressings with herbs. I had made a really light red curry chicken for dinner and was thinking I would make a green mango salad but I couldn't find any green mango. What I did find was a green papaya and a big chunk of daikon which is actually even better. Fresh thai basil, cilantro and mint and I was ready to roll. Green Papaya and Daikon Salad -1/2 green papaya, seeded, peeled and sliced into thin julienne slices -6" piece of daikon, peeled, cut into thin strips on the mandoline and julienned -3 or 4 radishes, cut on the mandoline and julienned -a couple of tables of fresh cilantro, thai basil and mint. The proportions and amounts are really up to you. I love cilantro so I always go a bit heavier on that -a handful of bean sprouts Dressing 1.5 tbls fish sauce 1.5 tbls of palm sugar or regular sugar 1.5 tbls of f...

I don't get how people can hate beets. They say they taste like dirt. I haven't tasted dirt in a very long time but I don't recall it tasting sweet and delicious. Plus, how can you not love a vegetable with such beautiful colour? I love everything about beets. I love them roasted, I love them hot, I love them cold, I love them grated raw in salads, I love them cooked and then fried in butter the way my mom used to make them and I love them pickled. I roasted some beets Saturday so I could make a salad with them Sunday to go with our pork panini dinner, my entry on no reEATS today. The smooth, sweetness of the beets goes beautifully with the peppery flavours of arugula, the crunch of a radish, the smooth silkiness of avocado and the salty bite of a few roasted pumpkin seeds. That sounds like bad copy for a tv commercial for the salad board but it's true. Anyway, it's a very simple little salad but simple is often all we really need. dressing: 1/2 cup extr...

I didn't want to make soup today. It was 12 degrees F outside, the windows are open and Little Shack and I spent the afternoon doing some spring cleaning. Soup is for -10 and snow so I think that it's time to put Friday Soup day on hiatus. There was something else that I did want to make instead of soup. I wanted to make oatmeal cookies today but couldn't find an oatmeal cookie that didn't require something I didn't have in the house. Suddenly, the image of a peanut butter cookie popped into my head. I NEVER make peanut butter anything anymore because all schools, community centres and camps etc are peanut free zones so if you have kids and you live in Toronto, you just don't bake with peanuts. It almost feels like I am making my son a stiff martini when I am baking up a peanutty confection to be honest and I do like to live on the wild side. I really liked the sound of this recipe  from Dolcetto Confections and I had everything on hand, including some c...

The Neighbours are having a little St Patrick's shindig tomorrow night, which I was very exited about. Unfortunately, I now have to work for a zillion hours tomorrow so I won't be able to attend, but luckily Shack and Little Shack will be there and I know that my wonderful Neighbour will save me some of her delicious stew and a nice slice of home made bread to eat when I finally get home. Wanting to contribute to the meal, I offered to do a dessert but I knew that I didn't want to make anything green. I understand the kitsch factor of green beer and green cake/icing/random dessert but unless we are talking green tea ice cream, I just don't find foods that are not supposed to green very appetizing after they have been dosed with green food colouring. I don't really want to drink green beer or eat a green cake. I searched high and low and finally found  these Black and Tan Cupcakes at Dinner With Julie  and knew that I had found the perfect treat. Kind of...

The minute I saw this recipe for a chermoula for oily fish on 64 sq ft kitchen, I knew I wanted to make it and do salmon. I almost never cook salmon steaks, preferring salmon fillets cooked so that the skin gets super crispy for the kid. He is the hoarder of salmon skin around here so it is always all about that crunchy skin but I wanted to try the steaks for a change. I followed the recipe without any real changes other than subbing shallots for the onion and it was really flavourful. Part of master plan was to have enough salmon leftover to make something the next night with it but I wasn't sure that would happen.

My son really, really loves tzatziki and can easily go through a huge tub of it in a day or two. I often buy it at my favourite Greek market, where they make the yogurt and the tzatziki themselves but when I can't get there, I make it myself. Greek yogurt isn't always easy to find in the supermarket and it's often really expensive when you do find it so I was pretty thrilled to find out that Loblaws has finally come out with it's own PC brand greek yogurt. I tried to buy it for three days in a row and my local Loblaws was totally sold out but I finally found two containers at another store and bought them both. I ate the first container as my morning breakfast for a week, adding a big dollop to a bowl of fresh fruit with a drizzle of honey and a big spoonful of mixed seeds (chia, flax and pumpkin mostly). It's very good, very thick and tart and although, it's not as fabulous as the stuff I get at the greek market, it is certainly good enough for the times th...

raw beef pho at Mi Mi There was no way I was going to make a soup this week. I could have done so on Monday but that is my only day off all week and I have to get ready for work, get the family ready (it's week one of March Break for Little Shack) and make sure the homestead doesn't burn down while I am busy. If I could be fed anything this week, I would choose to be fed the rare beef pho from Mi Mi's but since that isn't going to happen, I thought I would cheer myself up with a photo of it. Instead, I am going to share some of the amazing soups I looked at and wanted to make this week.  this delicious white bean soup from A Couple Cooks this creamy, smoky ancho lentil soup from Lost Past Remembered this soup for roasted cauliflower, chimichurri and poblano creme fraiche that I found poking around in the archives at Food 52 and this soup, also from the archives of Food 52 , roasted red pepper soup with corn and cilantro lastly, this slow cooker chicken...

I had to make a dip for a party and was going to make hummas but realized that I always make hummas. I haven't made babaganoush in years so I set out to find a recipe that sounded like the one I used that last time I made it. Martha Stewart's sounded pretty bang on so I used it as my base. Instead of one large eggplant, I used two medium sized eggplants and I think the proportions were fine. The only real change I made was to add a handful of chopped parsley because I like a bit of green in there and it's just a little more fresh with parsely. I used to buy this amazing, garlicky eggplant dip from a woman at St Lawrence Market. It was really kind of wet, it was really smokey, it had tomato and no tahini and it was soooooo good. I can't find out what it's called or find a recipe for it so if anyone reading this knows what I am talking about, please take pity on a girl and let me know. Babaganoush 2 medium or 1 large eggplant 2 cloves of garlic 4 tbls o...

As soon as I saw this soup on Suzie The Foodie's blog , I knew it would be my soup this week. The original recipe is found here  on food network canada. I changed it a tiny bit but it was pretty good as is. She instructs you to add fresh basil to the soup when you serve it, which would be great too but I had some chimichurri left from my roast chicken and so I used that instead and it was really great. The vinegar in the chimichurri added a really nice tang to the soup. 8 plum tomatoes, seeded and cut in half 2 red peppers, seeded and cut into big chunks 1 onion, peeled and quartered 3 cloves of garlic 4 tbls olive oil in total 2 tbls balsamic kosher salt and fresh pepper 3 tbls tomato paste 5 cups of chicken stock chimichurri Preheat the oven to 400F and line a baking tray with parchment paper. Toss the tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic in 2 tbls olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Place all of that , skin side up, on the baking tray and roast for 45...

Tomorrow is Little Shack's turn for snack day again so that almost always means muffins. I had a ton of strawberries in the fridge and they were so ripe that they weren't going to last much longer so it was obvious that I would be making strawberry muffins. I found tons of great sounding recipes but they all called for stuff I didn't have on hand like buttermilk or yogurt and I wanted to make them using what was in the house. I came across this recipe on Thyme For Food  for a really basic strawberry muffin. With a little tweaking, I whipped up a batch and they are pretty good. Not very sweet at all and with the addition of some whole wheat flour, I could send them to school with a clear conscience. If I were making these for home, I would probably serve them with a bit of butter or some apple butter or something because they really are not sweet at all. Maybe next time I would also add a mashed banana. I thought that the vanilla soy milk would give enough sweetness to...