Food-i-licious Nights*

EVENING ONE: SAUCE, SCHMAUCE
Location: Claire’s home
Origin of food: Choices and the Liquor Store

Ms. Claire and I met up in the early evening to plan our meal and happily decided to make an eggplant parmesan for dinner. We had differing recipes so we divvied up the work – the marinara sauce to her, and the eggplant and assembly to yours truly. But first things first, we had to get groceries, which included a bottle of cava and a bottle of red (which, with the help of Kristin, we finished(!)).

Onto the food: First I sliced the eggplant and roasted them. In the meantime, Claire started her sauce… which includes no chopping. Now, I know that some readers on this site might be slightly shocked by her methodology (as I was), but I can tell you that it was surprisingly delicious and I will never doubt Claire again. She peeled the tomatoes, and the onions, and just stuck them in a pot along with some basil and spices to reduce (see below for pic). And that was it. While this may seem like no proper way to make a sauce, Claire has since assured me that the recipe “hails from Italy” – and really, who am I to argue with such pedigree?



Once the aubergine was roasted, we coated them with some benko breadcumbs and began the layering process of sauce, eggplant, and mozzarella cheese. I usually use buffalo, but Choices was lacking, and we used a less moist mozza, which still worked very nicely. We stuck it in the oven heated to 375 for about 20 minutes, and then turned it up to 450 for another five to get the top a little crusty. Once done, we sliced up some baguette and had a delightful (and slightly drunken) meal. Unfortunately, we do not have a photo op for the finished product because we were so hungry.

EVENING TWO: AN ODE TO GARLIC
Location: Claire’s home
Origin of food: Choices and the Kits Wine Cellar

Seeing the success of our previous encounter, we decided to have another fun-filled evening of cookery and wine. After a short debate between tomato soup and roasted veggie couscous, we settled on pan fried cod, garlic mash, sautéed spinach, with homemade aioli. The recipe for the cod, mash, and aioli are all found in Nigel Slater’s “Real Cooking.” This menu is one that I’ve done before, and can easily be multiplied for a lovely dinner party for large numbers.



First things first, we opened a bottle of 2001 Gran Feudo Temperanillo-Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot blend. Very yummy.

Aioli: We did all our prep (potato peeling and debating between washing the fish or not), and then proceeded with the first of two attempts at the aioli. Lacking a mortar and pestle, I finely chopped the garlic down to a clump of mashed garlic. Then we beat two eggs and added some salt and the mashed garlic. Now, here’s the tricky part. The first time around, something went wonky and we were stuck with a pool of yolk and olive oil. *sigh* But Claire, being the genius that she is, checked online, and discovered that we had to literally add the oil one drop at a time until the mayonnaise forms. So we started again with the whole chopping garlic process but this time were extremely cautious with the oil. It worked! And we had proceeded armed with the knowledge that the very least, we had a kick ass aioli to look forward to.

Garlic Mash: While the aioli was in process, we had put water on to boil and cooked the cubed potatoes (along with two cloves of garlic – hence “garlic mash”). We strained the taters, and Claire made an excellent mash. Adding butter and cream, she whipped (with a fork, no less!) the potatoes into a light and fluffy concoction that made me very happy *yay!*

Spinach: We made the spinach and cod last because they took the least time to cook. This was already 1.5 hours after we started (mainly due to the mishap with the initial aioli). Luckily, Claire was prudent with her decanting measures, and we had not run out of wine *double yay!* For the spinach, I smashed two cloves of garlic and browned them with salt in a super hot pan. Then I threw in the spinach, and added a dash of milk. I gave the spinach a toss or two, and once they had all changed colour, they were ready to go.

Cod: By this point we were starving, so no time was wasted. The recipe called for some oven time, but we got cod that had no skin, which meant less cooking time. We went for a pan-fried version. We seasoned the cod with salt and pepper. In a med-high heated pan, I added some oil and butter so that the pan was completely coated and then some. I placed the cod into the pan and let them sizzle for about 3-4 minutes on each side. We decided to take them out when the fish was just cooked (with a little pink in the middle, which was gone by them time we plated).



And voila! A decidedly garlicky and delicious meal for two.

*NOTICE: My apologies for the tardiness of postings. But I am technologically inept and therefore have just realized that it is possible to transfer files from my cellphone to my laptop via BLUETOOTH (which I now firmly believe is the best invention ever.)

Mindful Consumption 2007

"May the food we are eating make us aware of the interconnections between the universe and us, the earth and us, and all other living species and us. Because each bite contains in itself the life of the sun and the earth, may we see the meaning and value of life from these precious morsels of food."

-Thich Nhat Han

Thus began "Mindful Consumption 2007", an event that first piloted in 2002 and has since become a yearly tradition. In the words of Stacy (who hosted the event in her home this year):

"...we gather consciously, mindfully, to be present with each other as well as to share and contemplate our sustenance...the plants and animals that provide nourishment, energy, medicine, and health, complex flavors, pleasure...even bliss, reasons to gather and commune, intention for our days, traditions and stories for our families and friends.

If you've never been to a Mindful Consumption dinner before, each person brings a food or beverage to share (it doesn't have to be a full meal...just a taste for each works too...as we may have many dishes/courses). Catherine creates the order and in turn we each share our consumable with the community...and eat them mindfully."



This year, the event took place on Saturday, November 17th. 22 people attended, definitely a record number, including a very entertaining and beautiful 10-month old baby who certainly ate her share. To save time and for added yummyness, a few people combined their food contribution into one offering. For example, Brenda brought home-made jam and Shauna brought home-made bread, so we combined the two into one delectable item (which you can see us gnoshing on, below)!

Our menu for the evening, which began at 6:30pm and ended near 11:00pm was as follows (we ate one thing at a time, pausing to appreciate each flavour):

• Cranberry and cinnamon goat cheese with crackers
• Multi-grain bread with pesto and smoked tofu
• Apples with cream-cheese caramel dip
• Avocado halves with fresh lime and Himalayan salt
• Home-baked raisin bread with home-made stawberry jam
• Shaftsbury Cream Ale
• Home-made radiccio pasta with tomato cream sauce and fresh parmesan (large photo featured earlier in this post!)
  
• Falafel
• Mandarin Oranges (whose peels we also mindfully played with...)
  
• Local apples with red-wine infused cheddar
• Buns with Chestnut Creme
• Nederberg Pinotage Red Wine (Claire's wine decanting lesson below!)...
• Pumpkin-millet muffins
• Home-made raspberry sorbet
• Mocha-chip cheesecake (also served as Greg's birthday cake!)
• Organic peanut-butter double-fudge chocolate-chip brownie-cookie frozen vanilla yogurt (John dictated this title to me, be mindful of it).
• Local hand-picked berries: thimble, black, salmon, huckle and mediteranian strawberries that grow on UBC campus (featured below)
• Rice-krispie dark-chocolate roll-up log
• Cointreau (orange-infused liqueur)

It was delicious. And we had a lovely crisp midnight walk by the beach afterwards. Thank-you to everyone for your creativity and inspiration!

Hallowe'en Harangue

Claire's bit
I can't believe what an amazing meal I just ate while fantasizing about throwing pumpkin guts at firecracker-wielding teenagers. I'll let Carla fill you in on it. Let's just say that sage, cheddar, and pumpkin never made a happier polyamorous marriage.

Because I'm the only one who's keen about video, it's my job to post the following. Various unconventional uses for pumpkin, which is a food, lest ye forget.

Weekend Brunch

Ah, brunch. There's so much to love about it. Anicka, Cristina, Catherine and I have brunching together pretty regularly for a while now. It's a tradition that greatly contributes to my sanity, and has been a forum for more than a few heartfelt and teary conversations. But don't let that mislead you, brunch is always fun and delicious. This week we had to brunch without Cristina, which is sad. So, Cristina, this post is dedicated to you. Now you don't have to feel like you've missed anything.

Coffee
So first thing's first. Coffee! In fact, I think "Can I have a coffee?" were the first words out of Anicka's mouth once she was through my door. My espresso maker is one tired old coffee machine, but it still does alright, I suppose. I'd love to get a new one eventually.


Scones
Anicka brought THE most delicious scones. I've been snacking on them all day. I hope I can entice Anicka to write a post on that recipe. They're spiced nicely and had dates and raisins. I think. According to Anicka, the key is mixing butter in with your hands in stead of a pastry cutter. She also recommends leaving the butter in biggish chunks.


Strata
My contribution was a stata that ended up being far more epic than it needed to be. It was cheese, sausage and sun dried tomato strata, which was pretty delicious although I would do a few things differently next time. I used Tofurky brand italian sausages, which really work well. Here's the recipe that served 4.

• 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes (not oil packed)


• 1 package Tofurky italian sausage


• 4 eggs


• 1 3/4 cups whole milk


• 2 teaspoons minced thyme


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 11 slices white sandwich bread


• 1/4 cup chopped onion


• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese


• 1/2 cup grated mozzerella cheese


• 1/4 cup goat cheese

1. First, soak the sundried tomatoes. Then cut the sausage into ovals and fry it up.

2. Grease a baking dish. Whisk eggs, milk, thyme, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Add sun-dried tomatoes, sausage, bread, onion, and parmesan. Transfer into the dish.

3. Cover and refridgerate for 4 hours. We didn't do this obviously.

4. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes. Sprinkle on mozzerella and goat cheese and bake another 5 minutes.

You couldn't notice the bread at all. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing or not. But you could experiment with adding more bread. Also, our strata was sadly burned on the bottom and top, so you might want to keep a closer eye on yours than I did.

Smoothies
Bargen the bargain hunter has discovered the joys of Choices' brown bag sales. Anyhow, she had bananas to contribute and made them into the most delightful smoothies - the perfect brunch dessert. I'm very sad to say that we neglected to photograph the smoothies. Dang. I think her method is pretty simple: bananas and french vanilla yogurt. She can correct me if I'm missing anything.

Cheap Eats!

I live in a part of town (Oak & Cambie area) where groceries are annoyingly expensive. So I am in LOVE with Choices' "about-to-go-bad-and-in-a-brown-bag" section. The bags sit on the floor directly to your left when you walk in the Cambie&18th store location. Featured in the pic is a bag of organic bananas for $1.98! 16 bananas in all...that's like 12 cents a banana or something! And note that the bananas are still in fine shape...they probably have a few days yet before they turn unappetizing.

I can hear you now: "So what? You think you're going to eat 16 bananas in a few days! Gfaw!" But I am one step ahead of the nay-sayers. I shall peel each banana, break them into chunks, huck them in the freezer, and have delicious smoothie fodder for weeks to come! Breakfast for 12 cents...you can't beat it.

Incidentally, I also bought a bag containing 2 beautiful eggplants for $1.28, and there were also plenty of bags of fresh herbs, which I've also stashed in the freezer. The other day, I got a whole whack of organic tomatoes for $1.98, which I stewed up into delicious sauce (the Cristina-Dann family method...we'll wait for her post on that gem, but it's already been referred to a few times on this blog!).

In conclusion, with a little creativity and a little time, you can eat like royalty from what you find lying on the floor at Choices. Hoorah!

Movie Review!

"How to Cook Your Life" at the Vancouver Film Festival

I'm going to keep this short because it's late. I really enjoyed this film which reminded me that it is worth the effort, energy and attention of preparing food...mainly because it helps you give love to yourself and others. I don't think they actually used the word love, but I think they meant it. A little love salad dressing on that carved radish salad, I'd say. Anyway, the film encourages us to use our hands and engage our whole selves with our food. The main zen-chef is clearly a recovering narcissist, but he laughed easily, cried about cheery battered teapots and basically had no tolerance for bread you can squish down to the size of a marble. A helpful tip I got out of the movie was to remember to dissolve your yeast in mildly warm water, not hot, or it will kill the yeast. Just a little advice for you there, when you thought you were just going to read a movie review.
If you've seen the movie, add your comments!

Plum-a-licious

Fruit Platz
Any number or kind of fruits can be used in this traditional Russian Mennonite dessert.
I chose plums.

Combine:
1 c. flour
1/2 c. pastry flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 c. butter or oil
1/2 c. milk
Mix in butter or oil until crumbly.
Add milk.
Mix with fork until a ball of soft dough forms.
Press into a 9x13" baking pan.

4 c. assorted fruits (Cut into chunks)
1 c. sugar
Mix and spread over dough

3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. flour
1 tbls butter
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
1/2 tsp nutmeg (optional)
Mix and spread over fruit.

Bake in preheated oven at 375F for 30-45 minutes.

** Note: I substituted honey for sugar, which is why the top crumbly part looks more ploppy.