The Yum Yum Factor

I have partnered up with the wonderful women of The Kingston Social , in the east end of Toronto, to host a monthly supper club to bring a little of that west end fun to our neck of the woods and I am happy to report that the response has been wonderful. For our May dinner, I knew that I was going to put both of my Anova sous vide machines to work on some sirloin cap, my favourite cut of steak and serve it with chimichurri but after that, I wasn't sure. This has been a weird spring and I couldn't be sure about what would even been in the market by the end of May. I assumed that I would find lots of seasonal produce like fiddleheads, ramps, colourful radishes and everyone's favourite weed, rhubarb. 

I feel like I am back in the saddle again with two media events in one week under my belt. After a bit of a break from eating and drinking all the damned time, I am back to eating and drinking all the damned time, which isn't the worst thing in the world. This week, the discovery of the summer was, without a doubt, Mill St Brewery's Distiller Root Beer. You heard me people, BOOZED UP ROOT BEER and it is really, really good. It's not too sweet and none of us could detect a trace of alcohol taste which is either a really good thing or a really bad thing. It was suggested that a scoop of ice cream would make for an amazing grown ass adult root beer float. I will be reporting back on that as soon as I can get my hands on a six pack to bring home (I was told that the LCBO will be stocking this sugary ambrosia by the May 24 weekend).

I have been making tons of pasta in my Instant Pot but the final frontier, for me, was to make meatballs with sauce. I will apologize now for the lack of beautiful photos but, sometimes, I am truly just making stuff for our dinner and so there wasn't much time and the next thin I knew the whole batch had been gobbled up. Take the lack of beautifully staged, lit photos as a sign of it's irresistible deliciousness. My recipe for Rigatoni with Meat Sauce  is probably my most popular Instant Pot Recipe so far at home and online. Although I get tons of great feedback on this one from readers,  it's also a recipe that I make, myself, at least once a week for Shack. Because the Instant Pot has made it feasible to make this during the week he tries to trick me into making it more often but nobody needs to eat this kind of rib sticking pasta more than once a week and until he can figure out how to work the pressure cooker properly, he still needs me to make it for...

Thanks to Gastropost and Maple Leaf foods, I finally got to attend a Terroir Symposium. In the past, Gastropost has treated me to some of the dinners and events leading up to the symposium but this was my first time at the actual event. It was 12 solid hours of culinary porn - wall to wall chefs, food writers, food photographers, food security warriors mingled with culinary obsessed super fans for a day of talks, workshops, presentations and lots and lots to eat and drink. At $300 a ticket, its only for the truly hard core, but if you have cash to burn and you want to rub shoulders with the tattooed, trucker hatted and bearded who's who in the culinary world, this is the place to be.

One of the most surprising things I have discovered since getting an Instant Pot is how well it does pasta. Because you cook the pasta right in the pot with the sauce, you are not wasting litres of water, it cooks in half the time and the flavours are much more infused and intense, which means I can get away with less and I always like to get away with less when I can.  RIgatoni with Meat Sauce                                                              Lobster Mac and Cheese                                                              Smoky Mac and Cheese Sometimes, I don't want a heavy pasta full of sausage or cheese and , to b...

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...