The Cook Next Door Meme

Thank you to Ana for tagging me for my first meme.

What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?
When I was about 6 or 7, my cousins came from England to visit. My male cousin who was a year or two older than me and I decided to make breakfast one morning. We found a recipe for pancakes in my Disneyland cookbook (I miss that cookbook) and made them. Unfortunately we did not read the recipe all the way through. The recipe called for 10 TB of butter to cook the pancakes in. You were supposed to melt 1 TB, cook some pancakes, and then melt another TB, etc. We melted the whole amount of butter and basically deep fried the pancakes. They were gross.



Who had the most influence on your cooking?
My mom did, and then when I discovered cooking shows on PBS, it was Julia Child and the Frugal Gourmet.


Do you have an old photo as "evidence" of an early exposure to the culinary world?
Does a picture of me covered in chocolate pudding count?


Mageiricophobia - do you suffer from any cooking phobia, a dish that makes your palms sweat?
Turkey, because it is something you normally make on special occasions for lots of people. I am always terrified I will undercook it and that I won't notice until we are sitting at the table eating.


What are your most valued or used kitchen gadgets and/or what was the biggest letdown?
My most valued is probably my Kitchen Aid mixer. I don't use it as much as I thought I would, but it is just so pretty. Most used is probably my tongs and my food processor. I just recently got my processor, and it is surprising just how many uses it has. Most disappointing - my waffle maker. I have had it for years and very rarely does it work as a fairly expensive waffle iron should.


Name some funny or weird food combinations/dishes you really like - and probably no one else does.
This is tough. I like bread with butter and HP sauce. I like teriaki sauce on baked potatos. I like ham sandwiches with potatos chips inside. When I was little, I liked to eat gristle, but thankfully I've outgrown that.


What are three edibles or dishes your simply don't want to live without?
Potatos, milk and tomatos.


Your favorite ice cream?
Vanilla Bean with cherries from Marble Slab.


You will definitely never eat...
Organ meat.


Your own signature dish...
All sorts of pastas.


That was fun! Even though this was sent to me 2 weeks ago (I went on holiday), I will tag Emily at Baking Beast to see if she is still around. Jennifer at Taste Everything Once because her site is so great. I'm sure Kitchen Hand at What I Cooked Last Night is too busy being a new dad, but you never know.

Taste Canada

What does Canada taste like to you?

Jennifer at Domestic Goddess wants to know.

To me, Canada tastes like sunshine, summer and the smell of grass. Spring and summer are my favorites times and when I truly feel the most Canadian. Canada is a truly awesome country - full of water, mountains, trees and wonderful people. I think it is most beautiful in the spring and summer; green and bold.

My happiest childhood memories are from summers - swimming, playing, visiting, and eating with friends and family. My parents used the barbecue as much as possible throughout the year, and in fact still do; on Boxing Day 2004 my dad was outside barbecuing steaks in a -30' snowstorm.

Rhubarb is of course not native to Canada. It dates back to ancient China, and is also native to Siberia, Mongolia and Tibet. Up until the late 1700's, it was used solely for medicinal purposes. In the 1780's people began using it as a pie filling. At one time, it was known commonly as "Pie Plant".

It's uses seem unlimited - liquor, sorbet and ice cream, chutneys and relishes, sauces, jams and jellies, pies, cakes, breads, fools, and of course crisps. In some countries rhubarb is used solely in savory dishes.

While Rhubarb is not original to Canada, I think it is a food that we Canadians can and do embrace. Rhubarb thrives in Canada. It easily tolerates our cool winters and occasional cool summer temperatures as well. According to at least one website, some say that the finest quality rhubarb is grown in Canada.

Rhubarb is everywhere in Canada. In everyone's backyard garden and at every farmer's market. Do a search on the web for "Canada Day Recipes" and almost every site will have at least one recipe for something made with rhubarb.

My Mom had a massive rhubarb plant in our garden, and one of the first things she taught me to cook was stewed rhubarb. To me, rhubarb announces that the warm weather is here to stay for at least a while.

The picture at the top of this post is a recipe called Rhubarb Crunch. I found it on the Allrecipes site after my boss gave me a garbage bag full of rhubarb last week. We like it, especially the contrasts; the rhubarb is tart and smooth, the topping is sweet and crunchy. Add some cream as we did, and have a safe and happy Canada Day.

Lunch at the Copper Chimney

My boss got a menu stuck in his door at home for the Copper Chimney restaurant. (240 Midpark Way SE, 201-7336.) It's East Indian cuisine and everyday but Monday they have a lunch buffet. (5th down) We made a reservation this morning, and headed out the door to be there for our noon reservation. The restaurant is located in a small, very quiet mall. Copper Chimney itself is quite small and had no customers when we arrived at 12:15. Not one. As we took our seats, we noticed a TV on the wall that showed a live picture of the kitchen and their tandoor oven. We watched the cook make our naan and cook it in the tandoor. They brought us out this naan that was so good - hot, a bit greasy, and soft on one side and crispy on the other. I ordered a lassi to drink and we headed up to the buffet. It's a small buffet, including salads and rice there was about 9 items. A green salad, a corn salad, rice, butter chicken , chicken kebob, a shrimp and veg, and 3 vegetable dishes, one was an amazing combination of green peas and cubes of cottage cheese in a sauce, and another was Allo Gobhi. Yum! My least favorite was the unnamed third vegetable dish; it was fine, it just didn't stand out as much as the others. With the naan and mango chutney and mint sauce on the side, the standouts were definitely the pea dish and the tender, flavorful chicken kabobs and the naan. Never in my life have I had such good bread. The buffet was $12.00 a person, a very reasonable deal, and we were glad to see more tables fill up soon after we started eating. I am definitely looking forward to my next visit soon.

The opening of Millarville

Keep your fingers crossed.....Millarville market is scheduled to open tomorrow.

The first market was delayed for 2 weeks by all the rains and flooding.

I'll be there tomorrow ready to buy some good stuff. Here's to hoping that everything is good up there and they have lots of customers tomorrow!

Bad and Good things.

On our way to Chico's Tecate Grill on Saturday we ran into some car trouble. Because Scott was going to be away most of the week, (and our holidays are coming up!) we figured we better get it looked at sooner rather than later. We left our car at the shop and went to Chinook Centre. The new Williams Sonoma had opened that morning! We got there about 11:30 and it was crammed with people. I bought one of these, one of these soaps, a counter top cleaner (not shown on the web) from this collection, and both of these. It was really too busy to have a good look around, in fact I missed most of the books and food items. When our car was ready, we debated whether we should have lunch at Chico's, as was the plan, or if we should go to Kinjo's since it was right next door. I have been to Kinjo's many times with the people in my office, Scott has only been once. No. We want Mexican food, the kind you drive all the way across town for. Traffic was hell, but we got there and had some damn fine food. I love the Pasilla salsa there. We stopped at T&T Supermarket, an oriental grocery store on the way home too. Picked up some veggies, meat, rice, sauces etc. Went back to Williams Sonoma to buy my boss his very own cherry pitter. A crappy start to the day, but overall, not too shabby.

I give up on Big T's BBQ

People, I tried. I really wanted to like Big T's. I absolutely love BBQ.

But after the 4th time there I've had enough.

The meat is good, needs some work on the smokiness, but it is tender and juicy. The side dishes for the most part, are good. The prices are not bad.

But I just can't take it anymore. The very bad beans served with almost every meal. The sauces are fairly bad and need a lot of work. The service is awful. I won't even go into detail about my last (and final!) visit. It's not worth it. Between the food and the hostile service (and I'm pretty sure that our server was one of the owners) I was embarrassed that I had suggested the place to my dining companions.

So until a new bbq restaurant pops up in town (not likely!), it's the backyard bbq for us from now on.

Too bad.

Dinner at Ralph's

dinner
Originally uploaded by Lemon3000.

In the front - Julienne of Beef, in the back, Drunken Chicken.

Bean and Rice Burritos

Last nights dinner...

1. SALSA

Tomato diced
Onion diced
Cilantro chopped
Lime Juice
Hot sauce
Salt

Mix together.

2. Beans

1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 can enchilada sauce
cilantro
onion
salt

Combine in food processor and whiz until chunky. Heat through.

3. Rice

1 pouch boil in the bag rice

Cook.

4. Mix hot beans with rice. Check seasonings.

5. Line tortillas with lettuce. Top with bean/rice mix. Roll tortillas and spoon salsa over top.

Trung Nguyen

Trung Nguyen
Originally uploaded by Lemon3000.

Next time you are in downtown Calgary, run! don't walk! to Trung Nguyen for a sub. You won't be disappointed.

Appetizers at Ralph Brennan's

Appetizers
Originally uploaded by Lemon3000.

At the back, Oyster Shooters. In the front, left to right, Coconut Shrimp, Andouille Sausage and Creole Calamari. God, that was good food.

WARNING

People, for the love of all that is holy, do NOT buy Aquafina Flavored Water.

Good Lord that stuff is nasty! I bought the citrus flavor expecting a water-with-a-squeeze-of-lemon/lime flavor sort of thing.

It was repulsive. It tastes just like sweetened chemicals - my fave! One sip and I tossed it out.

Turkeyleg

Turkeyleg
Originally uploaded by Lemon3000.

This turkey leg was so good. In the picture it looks very dark, even burned, but trust me, it wasn't. It was tasty. And huge.

Hello there

I'm back. Had a nice rest, then a holiday, and now I am sick. Oh well.

Let me tell you some things I have seen and eaten.

Went to Gospel Brunch at the House of Blues. The food was great and the music was even better. We had biscuits and gravy - I have never had that before and it was heavenly. We had biscuits and gravy at another restaurant on our holiday, but it didn't hold a candle to the HOB. Also had catfish for the first time. Macaroni and Cheese, which of course is totally different here (Kraft dinner, anyone?) and the best bread pudding with bourbon sauce. Sinful!

We had an amazing dinner at Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen. The building is gorgeous - it makes you want to run to New Orleans for a vacation. We listened to a great jazz combo, and the food was too good. Look at this menu! We had the sampler to start - except our sampler did not have the spring rolls on it. Oyster Shooters, coconut shrimp, Andouille sausage, and Creole calamari. It was all so good. For dinner Scott and I shared the Julienne of Beef appetizer (very good - the sauce was strong but tasty) and the Drunken Chicken which is not shown on the online menu. It was chicken breast marinated in rum and citrus, grilled, and served with spinach and a wild mushroom bread pudding. Incredible, especially the mushroom bread pudding. We had beignets and double chocolate bread pudding for dessert.

The biggest disappointment of the trip was Tortilla Jo's. We went there I don't know how many times (at least 4 or 5) but after the first time we didn't order any more food, we just went there to drink. Here's a review I found. I agree and disagree with it - mainly disagree because I had the steak tacos and they were absolutely awful - greasy and cold, and no sauce or cheese or veggies. Just cold greasy meat in a flour tortilla. Scott had the Shrimp Ceviche from the menu and it was great. But all the other food, and especially the service were really bad.

Most of our other meals were pretty run of the mill, but I have a great picture to post later of a huge Turkey leg Scott ate one day.

3rd meal at Big T's BBQ

The beans still suck!

But on the bright side, I had a pork sannie with fries and a highball for $10.70 including tax. How can you beat that?

French Leave Marathon

Did you watch the French Leave marathon yesterday? And did you LOVE it?

I love John Burton Race. Who wouldn't want to move to France for a year and learn how to make cheese and bread and try all that fabulous french food?

Other than his family.

Easter Dinner

Had dinner with family last night. It was all good. We made Tomatos Rellanos as our contribution.

I got the recipe from either Bon Appetit or Gourmet, but I can't find a link to it right now. Basically you have a smallish tomato for each person, hollow it out, and fill with guacamole. We didn't follow their guacamole recipe, we made our own.

ripe avocados
diced tomato
diced onion
hot sauce
lime juice
salt

We are simple folk and like simple guacamole.

On the way to families house yesterday, we stopped by this Lebanese market we used to go to all the time (but now we live in the 'burbs). For $17 we got an amazing haul of spicy olives, hummus, meat pie, fresh ginger, limes, tomato paste, brown rice, hot sauce, vanilla sugar, and pita bread.

Score!

Foodstuff

We are enjoying our organic produce. Pretty much all that's left is some apples and oranges. I used the chard in this recipe for Red Chard and spinach Quiche. It was good, but it sure made a lot!

Last night for dessert we had mini angel food cakes with strawberries and whip cream. Yum.

I cooked a roast with yorkies and mashed potatoes the other night, but I over cooked the roast.

We are going to families house for Easter dinner this weekend. We have been asked to bring a veg, and we are leaning towards the good old green bean casserole. But not in that quantity.

I didn't see this recipe on the French's site, but here's a good chicken recipe made with french fried onions:
Brush chicken breast(s) with a nice mustard. Coat with french fried onions. Bake.

In the spring we think we might buy a smoker.

Have you checked Food Porn Watch today?

Organic food - delivered to your door!

I got my first order from Organic Express yesterday. They delivered to my office, bless them. Everything looked really good - we got some rainbow chard, green leaf lettuce, blood oranges, regular oranges, pears, apples, pattypan squash, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, grapfruit.... I don't know if there was anything else! It will keep us in produce for a few days, that's for sure...

So I came really close to shutting this blog down and starting a new one. This one seems to be inhabited by little goblins who are determined to make errors I can't fix happen. But in the end, I fixed as much as I could, and will just live with the rest of the problems for now. I just didn't want to abandon some of my old postings. I have edited some posts and deleted quite a few I was not happy with (hey, I'm no writer.). It feels a little better, so we'll see, at least for a while longer.

Iron Chef Ameria - Feenie vs Morimoto

I'm not a fan of Iron Chef America, but we had to watch when we heard that Rob Feenie would be on.

It was a really great show, and Rob won it. We were a little surprised, but he deserved to win. CTV news has this article, and here's an entry from a blog that gives you a bit of a peek into how Iron Chef happens.