The Yum Yum Factor

More Meatballs! My last recipe was for these crazy delicious Korean Meatballs and this time, I am showing you how to whip up a big batch of tender meatballs that you can bake off and then freeze because, I know you don't want to hear it, but SUMMER IS ALMOST OVER. Time to stock the freezer for September when life goes back to the daily grind and nobody has time to come home from work or school and make these puppies. So, the difference here is that I use a combo of ground beef, ground pork and Italian sausage and that give me a really tender, moist meatball that has enough fat content that it doesn't get all tough when you reheat the frozen balls of deliciousness down the road. I make this giant batch and throw some of them in a nice, light tomato sauce to eat that day and freeze the rest. The best way to freeze them is to lay them out on parchment lined baking sheets that fit in the freezer. Once they are hard, you can pop them off the tray and throw them in a f...

You might have noticed that I am not publishing new recipes quite as often as I used to lately, but, trust me, I have a good excuse. A few months ago, I was hired on to design the menu for a new spot in Toronto's east end, The Kingston Social House. They wanted to launch a wine/cocktail spot with a small but tasty menu that only opens from Thursday to Saturday nights. There are lots of other exciting things happening on the other days - Brunch on the weekends by Thick Cut brunch , regular community based workshops, an upcoming Tuesday night Tapa thing by a group of chefs.... it's bringing the little neighbourhood of Birchcliffe Village back to life! Kingston Social Nights belongs to the women Now that I am the executive cooker lady at The Kingston Social , aside from the regular menu, I have to come up a weekly special as well as a soup and this eats up a ton of my cooking energy. If you live in Toronto, I invite you to come to the Social for a drink and somethin...

Okay my people, the Instant Pot adventure continues. If you love to cook but live under a rock, the Instant Pot is a 7 in 1 electric pressure cooker that also serves as a slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, yogurt maker and more and it is taking the world by storm by the look of it. I was given one to try out and review and I love it so much that I just bought a second one (it came last night!) and I am going to start teaching pressure cooking classes in Toronto with them. You could say I am obsessed.  I am going to honest here and admit that I had NO intention of trying to cook sauce and pasta all together in this thing. I thought it was going to be disgusting and watery. Most the recipes I was finding called for using a jarred sauce and I will be using a jarred spaghetti sauce right before I pose nude for Dog Lover's Almanac. Then i got the Cook's Illustrated pressure cooker book called Pressure Cooker Perfection and since America's Test Kitchen is my #1 go to ...

Wanting to make a special treat for our wonderful friends, The Neighbours, I wracked my brains for a week. They are both really good cooks so I can't easily wow them but I recalled that the topic of scotch eggs had come up more than once over the holidays. They both have fond memories of his mother's scotch eggs so there is a sentimental attachment, making them the perfect dish to bid goodbye to one year and usher in the new. For this first trip down the old scotch egg highway, I didn't want to mess around with the classic recipe too much since I knew that this was a very nostalgic thing for my friends but you know that there will be Korean Scotch Eggs, Mexican Scotch Eggs and more coming down the pipe. Scotch Eggs Makes 6 eggs 7 large eggs 2 large, fresh sausages 2 scallions, minced about 1 tbls grainy mustard fresh pepper about 1/3 cup of flour spash of milk about 2/3 cup panko Put 6 eggs in a pot of cold water and bring to a boil. Let them boil...

I love sausages. The only thing I DON'T love about sausages is that they can be a bugger to cook. When you grill them, you can end up with half of them burnt on the outside but still underdone on the inside and then the other ones are overcooked and dried out. Don't even get me started about them busting open before they are done and losing all of their delicious juices. In the winter, I poach them, which works well, but I couldn't help but think that sous vide might be the answer to all of my sausage dreams. As always, I read a hundred articles about sous vide pork sausages before I started and the general consensus was to cook them at 60C or 140F for anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. I had three types of pork sausage and, as you can see down there, I sealed some of them in my Food Saver bags and I left the two Italian sweet sausages for the zip lock bag. I used my Anova Precision Cooker with my polycarbonate bin and I watched House of Cards while they cooked. I...

It's tomato time!    2011   was the last time we spent the day with Nonna and the gang, washing, blanching, grinding, skinning, boiling and jarring bushels of juicy plum tomatoes. Looking at those pictures, I can't believe how much The Kid and his friend, Patricia have grown and wonder how it is possible that as everyone else gets older, Nonna keeps looking younger all the time! Guardians of the future If you have never done this before, you might wonder why anyone would work from the crack of dawn until suppertime just to come away with 20 litre bottles of tomato puree? At $20 a bushel for the tomatoes, approx $1 a jar for jars and lids, surely you can just buy cans of decent San Marzanos for a couple bucks and save your lower back and shoulders? three teens, three adult women plus Nonna and one strong man to tighten the lids and it still takes over 7 hours to process a dozen bushels As I have said many times, I didn't grow up with any...

Who doesn't like meatloaf? You know who doesn't like meatloaf (apart from people who don't eat meat of course)? People who haven't eaten a delicious meatloaf, that's who. We eat it prepared in a few different ways to keep it interesting. One of our favourites is Italian Meatloaf  and Italian Meatloaf take 2  , we do a Korean Style Meatloaf  and a cranberry glazed turkey meatloaf that is full of thanksgiving flavours without the hassle of roasting a big turkey. I promised The Kid that I would make it this week. I am always looking for new ways to jazz things up a bit when I came across my smoked paprika. Hmmmm. What about doing some Spanish flavours in there? I am kind of all about Spanish food right now, ever since I did a tapas spread for our Christmas Eve soiree. I spent some time living and working in Madrid in my former life and these were the flavours that still linger in my noggin. I went out and got a bit of Spanish Manchego cheese and some quince ...

ATTENTION PLEASE MY FRIENDS: I don't know what is going on with blogger right now but it seems that my blog is possessed by demons that make my normal looking posts publish looking like they are all out of whack, the wrong colour font, the wrong size and, well the wrong font altogether. I am trying to figure out a way to work around this demonic possession but, for the moment, it is going to look like I have lost my mind and I ask for your forgiveness, your patience and a vial of holy water, a virgin goat and  these guys. Oh, and ask them to bring Chip All of my American friends are usually pretty disgusted when you describe the difference between a Bloody Mary and a Bloody Caesar to them. I didn't realize that Clamato juice was a Canadian thing at all until I was in my mid twenties and tried to order a caesar , probably in Miami, and nobody believed that we actually drank our vodka with tomato clam juice. Who can be happy with a vodka with plain old tomato juic...

I don't think I have ever met a meatball that I didn't like. In this house we are all about the lovely balls of meat. Whether it's swedish meatballs, spaghetti and meatballs, my vietnamese bbq pork meatballs, sticky meatballs, saucy meatballs, spicy korean meatballs or lamb and mint meatballs - any meat that can get jammed into my meat grinder ends up as a meatball at some point, so watch your step when you visit.

Getting sick over the entire Christmas holiday is never fun, is it? When you are a food blogger, it's kind of your biggest holiday to showcase all kinds of great foods and fancy pants desserts but nooooooo, not for this kid. We did have a lovely Christmas eve party but I didn't really cook anything. We had mostly charcuterie stuff, cheese and cookies. Oh and waaaaaay too much prosecco but since the prosecco led to the spirited singing of caroles via some youtube karaoke videos, we don't regret the prosecco. Okay, maybe I regretted it a teeny, tiny bit on Christmas morning but not really. We enjoyed lovely turkey dinner with family and they cooked us dinner, so again, nothing to share. Then I woke up on boxing day with the plague and I am just feeling human again today, more than an entire week later. That means that there was no NYE, no New Years Day feast, no parties. Nothing. If you would like I can tell you all about the Habitant Chicken Soup I enjoyed and var...

Well, as much as I want to pretend it's not happening, the cold weather is closing in which means it's probably time for my weekly Friday, So It Must Be Soup feature. It's actually Monday but I also have to post this as my submission to Gastropost this week as my ode to the fall bounty so let's just pretend it's Friday and you go make this soup. Kale. We all love kale and I thank my lucky stars every day that I own a son who loves kale. He lets me put kale in his smoothies, he likes it in soups, he likes it sauteed with garlic and olive oil, he likes it in stews and he even likes kale chips. I don't know what sort of evil person I was in a past life that has made it possible to own a kid who loves food this much, but I choose to not ask too many questions and just keep cooking. I make white bean, kale and sausage soup fairly often but I always use those little canned Italian white beans and italian sausage. Since I had all afternoon to make this soup I ...