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 have been taking my time, slowly converting many of my favourite recipes to work in my pressure cookers. Although I am a hard core Instant Pot fan ( I own four of them), I was given a Breville Fast Slow Pro at the end of the year to try out it.  In order to get a good feeling for it,  I have made it my personal kitchen pressure cooker, with the Instant Pots taking a well deserved break.  Like the Instant Pot, the Breville does double duty as a slow cooker, it cooks rice, it has the sauté  feature as well as a reduce feature and you can also steam things in it. It doesn't have the yogurt function, but for me, this is not a deal breaker at all as you can make yogurt without a pressure cooker and if you don't plan to make yogurt at home, you won't miss it at all. I could write up a long, drawn out review but, to be honest, I agree with pretty much everything that Laura, over at Hip Pressure Cooking, has to say in her review  so you might as well ...

If you live in Toronto, you have probably had shortbread from Mary Macleod's at some point. Unlike most other self named companies, there really is a Mary Macleod and she started baking her famous chocolate crunch shortbread in 1981. Even after 30 years in the business, Mary, herself, still spends time in the kitchen coming up with new treats like the Butterscotch Shortbread Crumbs I used to make the crust for this cheesecake. I was more than happy to accept a free bag of cookie crumbs to experiment with because I would happily buy them anyway. I used to live right across the street from Mary's shop on Queen St East for a few years and so I was very familiar with the product. It's not like I had ever run over there in my pjs and grabbed a few cookies to go with my morning coffee or anything.....

mine didn't come with the extra roll or the jar sealer but yours will Oh Food Saver, sucker of the evil air that causes my food to get freezer burn and go stale, how do I love thee? I have been coveting some sort of vacuum system for years but my fear of adding another large appliance to my teeny kitchen coupled with so many different systems on the market has meant that I just never actually commit to buying one. Instead, I convinced myself that my home made method of sucking air out of a tiny corner of unzipped ziplock bag with a straw was sufficient, even if it meant have to swallow tiny particles of cookie dust, soup and raw bacon fumes. My current obsession with getting a sous vide immersion device has put the food vaccum system back on the front burner and lo and behold, the universe heard my whining and an email landed in my inbox asking me if I would be interested in trying out a Food Saver 2-in-1 Vacuum Sealing System . Why, HELL YES! Yes I would love to try ou...

One of the perks of this gig is that I often get the opportunity to try out all kind of products and  I make it a point to only accept things I already like or am already interested in trying. When I was asked to do something with some  Tre Stelle cheese  I wasn't about to turn that down, especially with a brand like Tre Stelle, that is a Canadian staple and a product line I already use all the time. Their extra smooth ricotta is almost always in my fridge. I guess I could just eat some and tell you what I think about it but that's not really how I roll, is it? Ever since enjoying my annual bowl of French Onion Soup from La Papillion after their Souper Bowl fundraiser, I have been craving more ooey, gooey Swiss cheese. As always, there are constantly disjointed ideas festering around in my brain that don't always make sense for ages until that magic moment where it all comes together, usually at the most inconvenient times. This time, I was lying in bed, just a...

When I got home from Jordan, there was a big box waiting for me and inside that box I found four bags of beautiful potatoes from The Little Potato Company . As you might have guessed, they sell a variety of little potatoes in the class called "creamers". Commercial potatoes are divided into 4 categories : Large, medium, small and creamers, all based on size and this company only grows creamers, which means that every potato is is between 3/4" and 1 5/8" and they are as adorable as they are delicious. To work with, I had some pink skinned, Blushing Belles that were first bred in Germany and two bags of Something Blues in there. My job was to play around with these little babies and come up with a recipe or two that would showcase their considerable attribute. The Little Potato Company has two facilities, one in Edmonton and one in PEI and they work with potato breeders from Holland to South America to produce real their various types of tater. WHAT? ...