The Yum Yum Factor

Mujadara, mujaddara, mejadra - I have seen many variations on the spelling and slight variations of the recipe, depending on which part of the Arab world it is coming from. Christian Arabs eat this during lent, it's popular with Jewish communities from Israel to Syria and Egypt and it should be popular with you too. Packed full of flavour and protein, it makes a great vegetarian meal alongside some steamed or roasted vegetables. I served it with harissa yogurt and shrimp fried in the shallot oil for these photos. You can drizzle some Zhug or other hot sauce, serve with yogurt or smother it in fresh herbs like mint, cilantro and parsley - that's all up to you. What I give you is a solid, basic recipe for mujadara made in the Instant Pot. Doing it in the pressure cooker means you don't have to cook the lentils and rice separately and no babysitting the rice on the stove is required. I do cook the crispy shallots in a small frying pan because I don't find that sauté ...

I am Back!! I have been sick since mid April, hence my absence from the blog. I bet you thought I had quit, didn't you? After a lengthy bout with some sort of lung plague, I am finally emerging from the fog and forced myself to get in the kitchen today. Okay, I have been in the kitchen but it's been all grilled cheese sammies, frozen potstickers and soup, mostly made by The Kid as I croaked out instructions from my sick bed on the couch, Netflix droning on in the background. I have a Supper Club coming up and the first course will be a version of this Basque style Leek and Potato Soup with Cod and Serrano Ham so it seemed like it was as good a time as any to whip up a batch and make sure it is as delicious as I recall. It is. The Traditional Soup, called Porrusalda, if often made with cod but you would normally add a whack of reconstituted salt cod and cook it IN the broth for a chunk, rustic soup. It's absolutely delicious and homey and wonderful but I n...

The Kingston Social and I are teaming up again for the new year and resurrecting our monthly Supper Clubs, starting in January. For my first menu, I will be doing a Yum style Peruvian dinner. My MVP pop up was one of my most popular of 2017 but, not one to rest of my laurels,  I really wanted to add something new to the meal and because it will be in January, soup just makes sense. This particular soup is based on the classic Peruvian soup, Aguadito de Pollo, also known as Levanta Muertos which translates into a soup to wake the dead due to it's restorative, nourishing properties and I have been told that it may or may not be great for a hangover. I am down with that. The soup, at it's most simple, is made with tons of cilantro, chicken and vegetables, usually served with whole, skin on chicken legs or thighs but that is not really my thing. Instead, I removed the skin, crisped it up until it was transformed into a chicken chicharon/cracker. It is crispy, salty an...

this version was topped with a bit of red onion and more sesame seeds  It is no secret that we love ceviche around here but I only have a couple of actual recipes on the blog because, for the most part, I make straight up, Mexican style ceviche and the only thing that usually changes is the type of seafood I use. I always use raw fish, scallops or shrimp and let it "cook" in lime juice and although none of us have any issues about eating seafood prepared this way, many people still view it as raw and don't want to try it.

The weather has been so lovely this week and suddenly,  February feel more like March so I am having a hard time getting excited about making more stick to the ribs weekly specials at The Kingston Social. My brain is all about spring and sun and the need to be warm so all I want to eat is ceviche and fish and salad, drink Gin and Tonics on the porch and pretend it's time to start on the garden. With that in mind, I looked to North Africa for inspiration after making some carrots roasted with ras el hanout, a Moroccan spice blend, during my last cooking class at Loblaws. Ras el Hanout (means head of the shop or top shelf in Arabic) = North Africa = chermoula and chermoula = some type of seafood and since my latest obsession happens to be sous vide shrimp, a dish was born. You might think it silly to cook shrimp using sous vide when they already cook in minutes on the stove top but sous vide results in the most amazing texture. Since I intended to almost pickle the shrimp...

You can keep your because I have been craving my brand of KFC - Spicy Korean "Fried" Chicken- all week. They are like the sexiest little chicken nuggets on earth - all spicy, sweet and crispy. YUM Traditional Korean Fried Chicken calls for double deep fried chicken served with or without and addictive, spicy/sweet gochujang sauce and, personally, I can't get enough of it. Because I don't really like to deep fry at home all that much I usually "oven fry" my chicken and when I really want to make it even more comforting, I just make some boneless, chicken nuggets so that I don't have to wrestle with bones and all that comes with an intact chicken leg. Sometimes a girl just doesn't want to deal with tendons and skin. My Spicy Korean "Fried" Chicken Recipe Regardless of what style of KFC you like, you are going to need some potato salad, right? Since this is Korean Fried Chicken, it stands to reason that I am going to make K...

This post is sponsored by   Persimon®  It's November and that means it's Persimmon season which also means it's time for  Persimon®  persimmons (Rojo Brillante) all the way from  Ribera del Xúquer in Spain. These particular fruit, known for their firm flesh and mild flavour, are ripe and ready to eat by the time they hit the grocery store, unlike other varieties  like the Hachiya which have to soften and ripen before they can be consumed. By getting these, you are taking the guess work out of it.  You will be able to find these in the store from now until February or until they run out of stock, so hurry up and grab a case or two while you can. Last year, I made a  Tarte Tartin  with my haul so this year,  Persimon® invited me to take part in their black box challenge, which is kind of like Chopped but I get to participate in my pjs in the comfort of my own kitchen. They send a bunch of bloggers a mystery box full of Spa...

the arroz de tomate of my dreams A few years ago we spent a couple of weeks in Northern Portugal and there were a few dishes that we ate constantly. We ate the garlicky clams with butter, vihno verde and cilantro every single day, the kid ate grilled sardines at least three times a day and at every meal, there was a bowl of tomato rice. Sometimes it was really soupy, like that one down there from Ponto Final  (I wrote about it here  ). It came in an earthenware cauldron and it continued to bubble and roil for most of the meal. That one was soupy and full of sausage but other times we were served a thicker version, usually with nothing else added in. I had forgotten about tomato rice until I attended a supper club that featured a multi course Portugese feast, prepared by my friend Paula Costa, of the blog, My Portuguese Kitchen   . Her rice was thick and creamy and full of seafood and since that night, I keep thinking about making it but it's been hot, I ...

When EarthFresh comes calling and offers me a couple bags of free potatoes so I can come up with a new recipe, I am always in. EarthFresh is a Canadian company that produce great quality potatoes, carrots and onions and my favourite thing that they do, apart from providing me with FREE BAGS OF POTATOES YO! is they pack the potatoes in a light blocking bag. I bet you didn't realize that potatoes can turn totally green after about 12 hours of fluorescent grocery store lightening - let's not even talk about how I look under those zombie lights. There is a reason that when you store potatoes it always instructs you to put them in a cool, DARK place. I buy these potatoes all the time, ever since whipping up these Indian Spiced Potatoes using their organic baby reds, so i am no stranger to these babies. Aaaaanyway, they were looking for me to come up with some sort of a potato salad and since this tomato vinaigrette is current obsession, I saw no reason wh...

So, it's the end of June and it's finally getting really hot and that means I don't want to eat hot food anymore. I start craving ceviche, salads and watermelon by the kilo and something I always think I want to make, but never do, is gazpacho. I really like all kinds of gazpacho so look for some other versions throughout the summer.  This particular dish was inspired by my June SupperClub menu which is mostly Middle Eastern but with a touch of Jamaican flavours, thanks to my Jerk Lamb Kofta . I always start my menu with one dish and then base the rest of menu around that so this time, I wanted something as first course that would be refreshing and light and lean a little towards Jamaica. Both the soup and the pickled jerk shrimp are great on their own (a bowl of shrimp with some bread to sop up the pickling liquid is a great meal in it's own right) but I find that something magical happens when you put the two together. Spicy Gazpacho with Jerk Pickled Shri...

I love me some Mexican style, soupy beans but I can never decide between Charros (named after the Mexican cowboys of Norther Mexico) and Frijoles Borrachos (literally translates to drunken beans), which are almost the same thing except for the addition of beer. Both versions are also wildly popular in Texas and New Mexico and because I can't choose which dish I like better I just mashed both recipes together to come up with this. I am not sure that this is 100% authentic and I know that you can ask ten Mexican grandmas for their recipe and you will get ten different answers so I still sleep well at night. You can serve these as a side dish, over rice for dinner, with fried eggs for the best hangover breakfast you will ever have or add more chicken stock and turn them into soup. I don't make these all that often because if done on the stove top, this dish takes hours to cook if you are using dried beans but this coming Saturday, I am cooking up a Mexican Feast at ...

I love me some Mexican style, soupy beans but I can never decide between Charros (named after the Mexican cowboys of Norther Mexico) and Frijoles Borrachos (literally translates to drunken beans), which are almost the same thing except for the addition of beer. Both versions are also wildly popular in Texas and New Mexico and because I can't choose which dish I like better I just mashed both recipes together to come up with this. I am not sure that this is 100% authentic and I know that you can ask ten Mexican grandmas for their recipe and you will get ten different answers so I still sleep well at night. You can serve these as a side dish, over rice for dinner, with fried eggs for the best hangover breakfast you will ever have or add more chicken stock and turn them into soup. I don't make these all that often because if done on the stove top, this dish takes hours to cook if you are using dried beans but this coming Saturday, I am cooking up a Mexican Feast at T...

So, we all want to try to make better choices when we are buying food, right? We try to figure out which foods really need to be organic and which foods need to be, at least, certified hormone free. We are encouraged to go for a drive, meet farmers and see how their animals are raised, go to farmer's market and forge relationships with the growers and make better, informed purchases.  That's all very well until we come to seafood. How are we supposed to meet the sea farmers when it's best to eat wild seafood? How are we supposed to know how to check to see how the fish was caught, who caught it and whether something is overfished? Not so easy to do on our own. That's where the MSC comes in. The Marine Stewardship Council is an international, non profit organization that was formed to address them problem of unsustainable fishing and make sure that there are seafood supplies going forward. They work with fisheries, suppliers and retailers to encourage...