Steak rolls

Can I just reiterate how much I love Pinterest?

Although I already knew about Steamy Kitchen, it was on Pinterest that I found this great recipe for steak rolls. It can sometimes be hard to find recipes that fit our no-grains, no-starch, no-bread diet and that keep us full, since it's so easy to use potatoes and rice as a filler. My pictures don't do the recipe justice because I'm a sloppy cook, but it tasted really good, which is probably more important than presentation anyway.

Breakfast salad

A couple of months ago, Davis decided to seriously cut down on carbs in his diet on the advice of Tim Ferriss, and I kind of went along for the ride. This made breakfast a little more difficult, since my breakfast traditionally involved a bagel, toast, or pancakes. For a couple of weeks I did fried eggs and sausages - hey, no carbs, right? - but feeling queasy for the rest of the morning cut that trend short. I also tried shakes with berries and protein powder, but it never really kept me full.

Thankfully, a few weeks ago through the miracle of Pinterest, I found this gorgeous recipe for a breakfast salad. It's so simple and relatively quick - the longest part is poaching the eggs, but I start them first and then chop up everything else and make my coffee while they're cooking.

The base of the salad is one chopped tomato, half to one avocado (depending on the size), and some shredded prosciutto.


I mix these up in a bowl, top with some grated cheese, ground pepper, and fresh herbs (basil, yum!) and two poached eggs.

Poached eggs? Scary!

The last time I tried to poach eggs for a yummy openfaced sandwich, I ended up with a pot full of egg foam and two poached yolks. Fortunately, the recipe for the breakfast salad also included a link with ridiculously simple instructions on how to poach eggs - and seriously, I've perfectly poached dozens of eggs with this method.

To reiterate: find a small pot and fill it about halfway with water. If you underfill it, I find the egg doesn't thoroughly cook. Boil the water, then bring down the heat until tiny bubbles are just rising off the bottom of the pot. Add one tablespoon of white vinegar.


Crack your egg into a small measuring up or teacup, and lower it into the water and slowly tip the egg out.


Set your timer for four minutes, and watch your egg poach!


When the time is up, remove the egg with a slotted spoon to a paper towel to remove the excess water.




YUMMY!

Eat! Vancouver food + cooking fest

As you probably know by now, I love to eat. So when I heard about the food and cooking festival happening this weekend in downtown Vancouver, I more-or-less commanded Davis to go with me.

And it was awesome.

We started off, naturally, in the wine+beer+spirits tasting area. This was probably not the brightest idea as I'd had two pieces of toast for breakfast and Davis had had nothing. But our light buzz probably made the crowds more tolerable.



There were so many things to taste, from local wines to wines from as far away as Hungary, delicious microbrews, vodka, spiced rum, sake from Japan, locally-made mead, a seminar on how to make the perfect Caesar - and absinthe:


After our liquid indulgences, we decided it would be a good idea to get something to eat - fortunately, we had plenty of options! We wandered up and down the booths, snacking on beef jerky, yogurt, ice cream, honey, Korean rice cakes, coffee, candied salmon, turkey sausages, barbecue sauce, olives stuffed with lemon and orange, chocolate:



and delicious Tête de Moine cheese from Switzerland:


And we weren't just concerned with filling our own tummies - there were also rows of pet food vendors, all happy to talk about their products and give us some samples for the beasts.

Even though we were unhappily regretting our decision to not wear elastic-waisted trousers at this point, we waddled over to the restaurant booths, where local restaurants were serving up sample-sized portions of their most popular dishes.



There were also celebrity chefs giving demonstrations, and different seminars on cheese and how to describe and pair wines and beers with food.

EAT! Vancouver also runs tomorrow - so if any of you reading this are in town, I highly recommend you drop by!

Eating in Tofino & Ucluelet

For such a small area, Tofino and Ucluelet have some seriously good eats that, as far as I'm concerned,  stack up quite well to some of the posher restaurants in Vancouver. Not that I'm a food critic or anything - as a poor student my gastronomic forays have been quite limited. But I do like eating and trying new things, and I'm always happy to eat in Tofino... although, since your dinner was probably swimming that same morning, how could you not be?

The first year we went to Ucluelet, we really didn't know the area at all. Our hosts had left some cards for various businesses in our cabin, including one for Norwoods. "Sure," we thought one night. "Let's try it."

The restaurant was pretty busy when we got there, as I recall, so we were seated at the bar in front of the kitchen. It turned out to be the best seat in the house, as we got to watch all the amazing dishes being meticulously prepared, and chat with the owner Richard and his chef Phil. The food is all ridiculously fresh - I usually order fish (albacore tuna is amazing), and it was usually swimming that morning. Most of their ingredients are locally sourced from the Island or in province, and are perfectly assembled and cooked.

On our last trip, we started with a pomegranate cosmo and a caramel apple martini:


Davis ordered an octopus appetizer in a ginger chili sauce. I felt a little odd about eating octopus, but all the seafood is certified by the Vancouver Aquarium's OceanWise program, and it was delicious - buttery soft and full of flavour.


My appetizer was thin slices of pacific salmon in a mustard dill sauce, which was also very tasty.


As an entree, Davis and I both ordered fish - what else can you get on a trip to the ocean? Davis chose the halibut:


And I got albacore tuna:


For dinner, we each had the goat cheesecake. Although the rest of their menu changes with the seasons, the goat cheesecake is thankfully something that seems to have staying power, for which I am very grateful!


Of course, Norwoods isn't cheap, and although one year we blew our budget by eating there three nights in one trip, there are other excellent, less expensive places to eat in the area. Our usual breakfast choice, Rooster's, has since sadly shut down (which is very sad because they had excellent and economical smoked salmon eggs benedict), but Ukee Dogs is always a great breakfast choice. Almost everything there, even breakfast, is served hot-dog style on a toasty, soft homemade bun. We always get the Maple Scrambler, which features breakfast sausages smothered in cheese and maple syrup. Yummy!

In Tofino, we usually stop at the Common Loaf Bakery and coffeeshop for lunch - I think their giant salmon salad sandwiches fueled my entire open water scuba diving course. It can be a little slow during busy hours and, heads up, they only take cash, but the lemon cranberry squares are worth it.

During our most recent trip, we discovered a new (to us) restaurant: Shelter. We'd seen it the previous year and it looked pricey, but we were looking for somewhere to have lunch after our surf lesson and our instructor recommended this place to us. The giant fireplace is perfect for warming up after a post-ocean dunking, accompanied by a bowl of salmon and clam chowder and coffee served in a French press. It was also at Shelter that I found a new love: The Tofino Brewing Company. I tried their most recent beer, the Hoppin' Cretin IPA. My only complaint is that they apparently sell out almost as fast as they make it, so we couldn't take any home! And, it turns out that Shelter is not as expensive as it looks - our lunch bill probably would have been under $30 if only we'd been able to stay away from the basil-infused Caesars.


Photo via Shelter.

I'm looking forward to discovering even more places to eat next time I'm in the area but jeez... I'm really hungry now.

Umami eggs

I can't emphasize enough how awesome these umami eggs from TasteSpotting are. They changed a gloomy, first-day-back-at-school-after-break Monday into

super duper awesomeness

Okay, it may be a bit of an exaggeration, but let me tell you that I boiled seven eggs - so fourteen halves - and I couldn't get Davis to stop eating them fast enough to get a picture of more than two halves.




The ingredients are super simple, and these take a minute to make once the eggs are boiled. You will need:



Hard boil and peel your eggs in whatever way you like. The recipe I linked to has a good how-to blurb at the bottom which I tried and liked. Davis swears by this method, but I think it's because he's in love with Tim Ferriss.

Next:
Cut the peeled eggs in half.
Add a few drops of soy sauce over the yolk of each egg half. You don't want it to overflow - just soak into the yolk.
Next add a squirt of Sriracha.
And top with the furikake.

Donezo!




Update: deluxe umami eggs with smoked salmon!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day is not really a big deal to me and Davis. On our first Valentine's Day together, he made a trail of chocolates and gummy lips in our house that led to a giant teddy bear. That was pretty cute. The next year I think we went out to some overpriced restaurant in downtown Montreal. It was probably about -30C out, so I wore a turtleneck sweater. I felt like a nun compared to all the other girls there - strapless tops in February, really? - and although we had reservations we had to wait at the bar for an hour and rang up a huge, overpriced drink tab until we got to sit down. Since then, Valentine's Day has been more about scoring discount chocolates on the 15th than anything else.

But, since this is our first Valentine's not living with one of our families in six years, I thought I'd at least make an effort. I got up early and made breakfast.

This was the plan:


[from left: image by New York Examiner, heart pancakes from 24/7 moms, berry smoothie by Make & Takes]

This was what I got:

I would say I scored about 2/3 on this breakfast. The smoothies were wonderful and so easy to make with just berries and soy milk. I've been practicing the pancakes for a week or so and they turned out all right - I dropped chocolate chips and frozen raspberries in the batter as they were cooking and that tasted pretty awesome, but I couldn't stop the raspberries from burning on the surface. It was also really hard to make the heart shapes - I used a large cookie cutter that I put on the pan and poured the batter into that, but even though it was oiled the batter kept sticking to the cutter which ripped off huge chunks as I pulled it off - and that cutter was HOT!

The eggs were not a success - I tried doing them the same way as the pancakes, but the white seeped out from under the cutter. I then tried to just fry the egg normally and used the cutter afterward, which worked fairly well except I didn't know what to do with the excess whites - I felt guilty throwing them out, so I hid them underneath the egg heart and it just looked a little odd and lumpy. Oh well!

I took the morning off of school (I used to go to class religiously in undergrad, but now in vet school I'm finding that I'm much happier if I just study from home) and tonight we're going to make a nice Italian dinner - gnocchi and proscuitto wrapped around melon and bocconcini on tomato - and have some wine.

Update: dinner was a success!


What are your Valentine's plans? Fancy dinner or a cozy night of TV on the couch?

The spice of life

I've been buying spices in bulk for a couple of years now, because I can't bear to spend $5 on a little glass bottle of paprika at the grocery store. But this meant that I unfortunately had a basket full of little baggies twist-tied with spices in them - not the most attractive or organized presentation.

When we moved to Guelph, I decided to buy a spice rack to fill with bulk spices - we found a really cool magnetic system that stood on the counter, which seemed like a good idea because we didn't have much cupboard space (we don't have much counter space either, but it didn't seem like much of an issue at the time). We bought a few extra tins that we figured we'd cram onto the easel, and went home.

I'm not sure how it transpired that Davis figured out that - being magnetic - the tins would also stick to the fridge, but as far as I'm concerned this discovery is right up there with penicillin, flubber, and the theory of relativity. I still remember the dawning look of revelation on his face as he stood there, still holding the tin stuck to the fridge door. We returned the easel set, and bought a bunch more individual tins. And they've been multiplying ever since.


[note also Davis's hercules beetle magnet and the requisite bird on top of the wine rack - well, I assure you it's a bird, it looks more like a blob]

I've labeled the back of each of them and arranged them in alphabetical order - primarily because I'm a nerd, but it also makes things easier to find.



I love my spice rack. Realistically, I'll never run out of room, the tins are just over a dollar each, and if I decide for some unknown reason I never want to eat cardamom anymore, I can just wash the tin and stick a new label on. And most importantly, I can buy spices in bulk without sorting through a bunch of baggies every time I want to cook.

Christmas cooking recap

Every year I get drafted into making two things at Christmas: our now-traditional Christmas day breakfast crepes, and cookies.

This year, along with the usual gingerbread and sugar cookies, I decided to try something a little fancier, and found Martha Stewart's Linzer sandwich cookies. They looked complicated, but ended up being not much more difficult than gingerbread cookies.

Here's what you'll need:

• 1 cup raw hazelnuts (I ended up adding some almond to mine because the bag of hazelnuts I bought turned out to be slightly less than a cup)
• 1/2 pound unsalted butter (it's so much easier if you take this out a few hours before...!)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• confectioner's sugar
• jam (raspberry or cherry will do, but I was told that red currant is traditional so I hunted all over {okay in three grocery stores} for some. It was delicious, so I do recommend it if you can find it!)
• you will also need two cookie cutters - one that is large and round and one that is small (see pictures)

Start by preheating your oven to 375 degrees. When the oven is ready, spread the nuts on a baking sheet and toast them for about 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them though... mine could have used a couple more minutes, but you don't want them to burn! When the nuts have cooled, rub the skins off using your fingers or, for more stubborn ones, a clean towel.

Using a food processor, grind the nuts as finely as possible. I didn't have a food processor, so I destroyed the motor of my mother-in-law's coffee grinder instead. Fortunately she wasn't upset because it was only $10 and she ended up getting another one for Christmas, totally coincidentally. If there are some chunks left it's not a big deal because it'll be interesting in the finished cookie... but try to get most of the nuts to a salt-like consistency. Set aside for now.

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. If you are so privileged, you can use an electric mixer. I used my good old muscles. Add egg, and beat until smooth. Mix in vanilla.

In a medium bowl, whisk together ground hazelnuts, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. In parts, add to butter mixture and stir until combined. I had to use my hands at the end. 

Get two large pieces of plastic wrap, and divide the dough onto each piece. Flatten to form a disk, then wrap each piece in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

When the dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. On a floured surface, roll out the dough until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out the cookies using the large circular cutter and place onto a baking tray. Using the small cutter, cut out the centres of half of the cookies. Bake for about 12-16 minutes, checking to make sure the edges don't get too brown. Cool on wire racks.

Separate the whole cookies from the cookies with the cut-out centre. First, sift some confectioner's sugar over the cookies with the cut-out centre. Then, spread some jam on the whole cookies. Then make a sandwich!

I thought these cookies were super tasty - a nice break from all the chocolate we had, and the nuttiness combined with the tartness of the currant jam was delish!

Richmond Night Market

One of the many things I love about Richmond - aside from Asian grocery stores, Japanese dollar stores, green tea cream puffs (and Blizzards!), fish n chips on the dock, daily eagles, and a plethora of farm markets - is the summer night market. All night every weekend during the summer, what seems like hundreds of booths set up in a huge lot in an industrial park on the river, drawing enormous crowds.


You can get pretty much anything at the night market - handmade incense burners shaped like houses from South America (the smoke comes out the 'chimney'), grasshopper hats, bootlegged Korean DVDs, exotic fruit, underwear both scandalous and matronly, live goldfish, and knockoff Gorillapods.


But the food is the best part - and the most packed with people. At times, trying to navigate through the food tents, we would just spend a few minutes standing still waiting for space or movement in the crowd. The variety of food is amazing...lamb skewers from the Middle East, marinated and barbequed octopus from Japan, airy pancake-like egg puffs from Hong Kong, pho noodle soup from Vietnam, dragon beard candy made from spun sugar and peanut paste from China, deep-fried Mars bars from Scotland, and a hundred other things that I can't even describe or remember. It was as common to see someone walking by sucking on an octopus tentacle as it was seeing someone drinking from a coconut. It was a little surreal.


Hope you enjoyed your weekend! Davis booked my birthday present for next weekend - I am pretty much rolling on the floor squeeing in excitement, but I think I will wait to share until I have photos. :)

Mint and white chocolate brownies

Ingredients:
half a cup melted butter
half a cup unsweetened cocoa
one cup sugar
two eggs
two teaspoons vanilla extract
half a cup flour
one quarter teaspoon salt
half a cup mint chocolate chips and half a cup white chocolate chips

Instructions:
1. preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. mix together the melted butter and cocoa until smooth
3. add sugar and mix well
4. add eggs, one at a time, and stir until combined
5. add vanilla, flour, and salt and stir until just mixed
6. fold in chocolate chips (you can substitute anything you want... smarties, peanut butter, nuts, maraschino cherries, etc!)
7. spread batter in a greased eight-inch square pan and bake for 25 minutes
8. don't overbake! or your brownies will be dry. I discussed this with my mother and for brownies, unlike for cake, a toothpick inserted should not come out clean, it should have moist crumbs clinging to it.
9. eat like a pig and enjoy. I cleaned out half the pan before Davis got home...

When life gives you lemons...

... make s'mores!

Vegan Cranberry Pumpkin Bread

I'm not a vegan. I'm not opposed to veganism, or vegetarianism, but neither do I see anything morally wrong with eating an animal. I am opposed to the mistreatment of food animals - I always buy free-range eggs, meat from small, local farms, and support humane food labeling. But I do like my bbq ribs, my grilled Cajun chicken, my bison steaks, and devilled eggs.

But that is not the point of this post, and I digress. The reason why I ventured into vegan cooking is because I was asked to contribute a couple of items to an on-campus craft fair and bake sale held by Engineers Without Borders back in November. Because McGill's School of Environment is on our campus, there are a lot of vegans and vegetarians (which is ironic, because the farm is also on this campus...) To be vegan-friendly, I looked up a recipe without eggs, butter, or other animal products. I was very happily surprised by how this turned out! It was moist, and flavourful, and Davis has been harassing me to make more ever since.

Vegan Cranberry Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:
2 cups whole raw cranberries (I used frozen, but if available I imagine fresh ones would be lovely!)
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
3/4 cup sugar
3/8 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
5 tbsp canola oil
2-3 tsp orange zest (I think I might have actually used way more than this... but I'm zesty)
3 tbsp water

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Using a food processor or a sharp knife and lots of patients, roughly chop the cranberries until they are about quartered and set aside.

In a medium-sized bowl, mix the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and spices.


In a larger bowl, mix the wet ingredients - pumpkin puree, oil, orange zest, and water. In small portions, start adding the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing as little as possible until just combined. Pour the batter into a cake pan - I know the recipe title says loaf, but the recipe calls for a 9-inch round or square cake pan. I used a springform cheesecake pan, and it seemed to work. Someone who reviewed the recipe used a muffin tray. I'm curious to see what would happen if you used a normal loaf pan... an experiment for the future. Oh, and because there's no butter, it might be a good idea to grease your pan. I might have unthinkingly used butter, something I only realized now, two months after the fact. I really hope I didn't.



This should be baked for 45-55 minutes. The recipe suggests removing the cake from the pan relatively soon after taking it out of the oven, or the bottom may get soggy.

Ta da! It was quite a dense loaf, but that could be due to my overstirring. But it was quite good - which I think others agreed with, as they sold out of it!


I also made traditional chocolate and vanilla icing cupcakes, for the non-vegan junk food addicts like myself: