The Yum Yum Factor

I lived in Madrid a million years ago when I was in my twenties and I admit it - I was a tortilla addict. I ate tortilla in the morning. I ate tortilla mid morning. I ate tortilla at lunch, at dinner and again in the evening as a tapa. I also gained an alarming amount of weight which only made sense AFTER I watched somebody making it. Potatoes cooking away in a big pan of simmering oil was all I needed to see to understand why my steady diet of tortilla and beer was also responsible for my waist white wall tire. DOH. After I got home, I could never get the hang of making it myself, almost always resorting to just popping it in the oven to cook the top instead of flipping it because it constantly fell apart. I understand that this was also probably because I was constantly trying to lighten it up, make it a bit less fattening and leaner so I could eat more of it, more often. I have now given up on that and I am making it properly - poaching the potatoes in plenty of olive o...

It's not every day that you are invited to a pickle tasting party, is it? I have been to wine tastings, beer tastings, scotch tastings and even chocolate tastings but this past weekend, my blogging buddy, Mom Who Runs  invited Shack and I to her home to taste pickles. She and I had talked pickles quite a bit and she knew that we are all mad for them and knew we would not say no. She asked me to bring something that would pair nicely with pickles and I drew a blank. I was thinking I could bring a bag of hamburgers or something or perhaps a pound of smoked meat, a loaf of rye bread and a case of Cott's Black Cherry Coke?  I think a mild cheese goes with pickles and I had a ball of Trader Joe's burrata burning a hole through my fridge door. I also had a bag of Le Grand Garden Pesto  that I was dying to try and, as luck would have it, a box of baby kale in the fridge, a few yellow and red small tomatoes and a chunk of red onion.  Most of my best invention...

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...

s I have to be honest. I really, really wanted to make sopa de lima today. Jen, from Piccante Dolce, was kind enough to bring me along with her this week to a dinner put on by the Mexican Tourism Board at Frida, a fabulous Mexican restaurant in Toronto. UNESCO has recognized Mexican cuisine's cultural heritage and added it to the list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity . How cool is that? We got to dine on multiple courses, all representing different UNESCO recognized sites throughout Mexico. It was a very special experience for me because Mexico is a country of my heart - sorry, I know that sounds incredibly cheesy, but it's true. I have travelled quite a bit there over the last 20 years or so and have an incredible affinity for it's culture and it's food. I am going to wait for Jen to write about it and then I will link you to her post and I will chime in with my thoughts at that time.  Okay, back to soup. Shack loves French Onion Soup and I am kind o...