The Yum Yum Factor

So, we just got back from a trip to Paris and Rome and my head is so full of recipes that I want to replicate that I almost don't know where to start. Keep any eye for all of my upcoming posts about the trip so I can share all of the great things we ate and the fun stuff we did, but for now, here is my first recipe inspired by our travels. I bet this guy could use a good carbonara You can't go to Rome and not binge on carbonara and even though that is exactly what we did,  here we are, needing more. We make carbonara all the time and I can't believe that I haven't used the Instant Pot to cook the pasta all this time. I am the first person to lecture about adapting EVERYTHING to the pressure cooker, whether it's suited to it or not, but because this dish relies on the starchy pasta cooking water,  it makes even more sense to cook the pasta in the pressure cooker. When you pressure cook pasta, you are always left with this thick, starchy water...

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...

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...

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...

Have you ever eaten something that haunts you long after the fact? About a year ago I had a raw brussels sprout salad in a restaurant. I am pretty sure it was Pizzeria Libretto but If it was there it doesn't seem to be on the menu anymore. It was kind of rich and cheesy but with a really light, bright vinaigrette and it happened to be the first time I had eaten raw brussels sprouts. We eat roasted brussels sprouts so often that I wouldn't be shocked if I woke up to find that I had started sprouting little leaves on all of my limbs like the kid in The Odd Life Of Timothy Green. Anyway, since eating that salad, I haven't been able to stop thinking of it. Of course, I have also never tried to make it at home either, but that doesn't change the fact that despite my pining for it, clearly I was waiting for someone else to make it for me again and that didn't appear to be working out for me. I found myself with a handful of sprouts left in the fridge - not en...

I was invited to the Foodies Forever Blogger Launch put on by Cutco  Cutlery this week and I dragged Shack out with me to act as my photographer, which he does for me on occasion. He happens to be a very good photographer and he also acts as my body guard, chauffeur and male escort. If I ask him to, he also cuts my meat. He is an awfully good guy to have around. The event was held at the Liason College Campus in downtown Toronto. Little did I know that the lovely ladies of Cutco planned on dragging all of us into the kitchen (it is a cooking school) to get our hands dirty. Okay, we got our hands dirty AFTER we washed them thoroughly, of course, and then we washed them again because they did get dirty. I was in a group with the effervescent Linda Nusca, Cutco's top Canadian Sales Consultant. She basically guided us through what they call "the Cutco cooking experience". People can contact the company and set up what is almost like a little dinner p...