The Yum Yum Factor

I wrote a post about ten lunch ideas for those of us with kids who aren't picky and who like to take a hot lunch to school. In order to put my money where my mouth is, I realized that I couldn't make his very first lunch for his very first day of high school a boring old smoked meat sandwich like I was kind of wanting to do. Instead I practiced what I preach and I made Vietnamese BBQ for dinner the night before so he could take it for lunch the next day. Okay, so I also made it because i LOVE to eat it myself but still, If I am going to get back into the swing of things, that is going to have include not only cooking dinner every night but doing that with an eye towards The Kid's lunch the next day. This is a regular staple around here and I have published this recipe before on my old blog, NoReEats. I have been combing the archives over there more lately and I am going to regularly start reposting the recipes that stuck that I am still making now a couple of years ...

It was so hot today that you couldn't even sit still outside without melting into a disgusting pile of sweat soup. Of course, I made the mistake of thinking it would be nice to walk down to the beach and do a bit of grocery shopping this morning. Walking down to the beach also means you have to walk back UP FROM the beach, which I did, carrying two heavy bags of food. By the time I arrived back home I knew a couple things for sure. I was NOT going to turn on my oven, boil water for pasta or go for another walk back down to the beach.  When it gets this hot and humid I always crave a bowl of vietnamese bun. Bun noodles are typically the very thin rice vermicelli noodles that you can find in any asian grocery store. Room temperature noodles, lots of fresh herbs, sweet/sour nuoc cham, raw veggies and a bit of fish - it doesn't get better than this. I am not sure if using salmon in this version of bun is very authentic but it delicious so I don't really care. We o...

I adore beef pho. Because I am lucky to live in a city like Toronto, there is no need to make it at home to be perfectly honest. Why would I go to all that trouble when I can walk out the door and be at Mimi on Gerrard in 15 minutes, sitting down to a piping hot bowl of perfection. For this reason, I have never actually attempted to make it home. I grew up in a house where money was tight and food had to stretch to feed 7 people, three of them growing boys who ate like wildebeest with the munchies. Because of this, we ate a lot of hamburger stew, canned creamed corn and white sandwich bread and although my mom did make a few things I really loved, they were special occasion foods and were rare treats. The best day of the year was always my birthday. My mother would not only let us stay home from school for our birthday but she would also make whatever you requested for your special meal. Of course, because I was a horrible child, I made her make the three things tha...

My friend asked me to make an appetizer to bring to her annual Oscar Party, which always makes me happy because I love any excuse to make food to feed to other people and she almost never asks for any help so I felt extra special. I made Rosemary Honey Brie Pops and these sticky meatballs. I have had this recipe from Smitten Kitchen kicking around in the back of my mind for ages and immediately thought they would be perfect for an Oscar party. In my opinion, everyone likes a little meat on a stick and it went with the brie pops theme. I could almost live my entire life eating food on a stick if I could just figure out a way to serve skewered noodles. It will come to me eventually.

I have made these meatballs before using ground chicken and we loved them but this was more of a pork kind of day. I usually serve them with rice noodles, bun style, and then sent the leftovers with the Kid for his lunch the next day. Since I have sent the poor wee street urchin to school with a sandwich two days in a row, I was having some mom guilt. A lovely lunch of vietnamese food with a friend made me think of these meatballs and so I hopped across the street to the magical asian grocery store and bought all of the ingredients I would need. Don't be scared of the little roll in the sugar bowl that these babies take just before baking because it gives them that sticky, sweetness of asian bbq meats. You could probably skip it and still end up with a tasty meatball but you would definitely be missing that little extra bit of something that makes these really special. Now, if we weren't still on this god forsaken diet, I would make bahn mi sandwiches but since we (that...

I have had a serious craving for bun - if you eat Vietnamese food, you know what I'm talking about. A bowl with crisp, shredded romaine lettuce, cold rice noodles, lots of chopped dry roasted peanuts, fresh mint and cilantro, shredded carrots, cucumbers and some sort of sticky, sweet bbq meat that you pour nuoc chom over and then scarf it all down like a maniac because it's so refreshingly delicious that you can't stand it?? Okay, if you don't eat Vietnamese food and don't know what I'm talking about, go find some. Honestly. So my quest today was to make some but I didn't feel like tackling the bbq pork today but The Kid loves meatballs so I thought I would whip up some sort of Vietnamese meatballs out of ground chicken and do a kind of   Bun Ga Nuong . The only thing I was worried about was the sticky, caramelized glaze on the outside when I found this recipe on the Food and Wine web site.  It's from a cook book called Small Bites by Jennifer J...