Category: Food

It's the most pizza-est night of the week

15/1/2016

Friday night is pizza night. Whatever the week may bring, good things will happen after work on Friday.

We've really been enjoying our Breville electric pizza oven, which was a pre-wedding gift. As you can see above, it really does a nice job on the crust. After initially being terrified it was a dangerous appliance and would burn the house down, we've since relaxed a bit and are glad of its high-temperature capabilities (600-650 F).

This week's pizza was partly a fridge clean out:

Leftover arugula pesto
Caramelized onions
Diced zucchini and red pepper
Olives
A cheese medley (we had dribs and drabs of chèvre, blue cheese, and Parmesan)

Overloading our pizzas with toppings is kind of our norm (unless we make a marguerita, and even then I have a tendency to over-do it on the cheese). It is a bad habit that I am okay with. This particular pizza ranked about average (and we think our average is pretty good). Its only shortcomings were having an oil/moisture content that was a touch high.

The key to a successful pizza, in my opinion, is salt. It's really hard to over-salt a pizza, and ample salt really amps up the flavour. Don't be afraid to put plenty of it in your dough, and to make your pesto excessively salty!

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Beet-za

25/7/2013

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Much like Gruner deserved two back-to-back dinners, this pizza was so good, we had it twice in a row. I declared that it might be the best home-made pizza yet. And it's straightforward to make:

1. Roll out your pizza dough.
2. Spread on home-made pesto. (Don't be afraid of the salt!)
3. Add grated mozzerella.
4. Top with roasted beets, asparagus, and blobs of chevre.
5. Bake. Season with extra salt, pepper, and maybe even a few red chile flakes. Pairs well with Friday nights. Enjoy!

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Portland-ing

21/7/2013

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Spending half a week in Portland was great, but it wasn't enough time. Portland and I have unfinished business.

Our doughnut business is finished (although I could easily go for another Blue Star classic buttermilk).

Hill walks are another story, though. Out of the 24 walks in this fantastic book, I did 4. They included fancy suburbs, woodsy trails, and an aerial tram. It was unfortunate to leave the other 20 undone, but I'd go back to Portland just to do more.

And to eat alpine cuisine. Dinner at Gruner was so amazing that we went back again the following evening and ordered pretty much the same meal. Not pictured are the crispy polenta-and-raclette balls. Or the homemade pretzel. (Note the pretzel croutons in the salad.)

Ruby Jewel Scoops! Unfortunately, we also missed getting pie at Random Order and sandwiches at Grand Central Bakery and pizza at Apizza Scholls. Next time we'll try for an entire week, and in addition to hitting more restaurants and hill walks, it would be great to also make it to Sauvie Island, the Willamette Valley, Mount Hood, Timberline Lodge, Crater Lake... Oregon and I. Unfinished business.

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A few things of note

5/6/2013

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Susannah's shop, The Curious Vitrine, is an "emporium of handmade art, curios & vintage collections". She's having a sale until June 9, so go check it out! As a fan of tone-on-tone, this cream crocheted cuff is my favourite item: it's "embellished with distressed vintage lace that has been hand-dyed with rosehip and hibiscus tea, and scattered with irridescent sequins". Charming!

In other accessorizing news, I recently purchased this bow necklace from local artist Sarah Mulder, and today I stumbled upon an impressive array of hair tutorials. And in a final bit of foodness, if you're in Vancouver, go here for burritos post-haste!

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Just in time for spring?

21/4/2013

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I made a hat. It was actually finished some time ago, but I decided that it wasn't complete until I added gold sparkly bird pins. (Do they look like birds? I'm not so sure, but I do enjoy a pink/gold colour combination.) I shaped the "birds" out of modelling clay, used liberal amounts of awesome glitter from Paper-ya, and hot-glued pin backings on them. The stitch pattern is Little Birds, and the hat pattern is my own (it fits more like a beret than a toque, which may not be clear in this photo). I'm still working on my rose cardigan, but after seeing this incredibly cute hedgehog scarf, well... there's an incredibly cute hedgehog scarf in my future.

In food updates, high tea at Last Crumb was excellent; I'm also excited to find out that Butter has high tea too - this will be an expedition for May. I'm thinking of heading to Patisserie Lebeau for traditional Belgian waffles, and to Miura Waffle Milk Bar for a waffle sandwich (!). In the last while, I've had two excellent home-made breakfast items that are worth sharing: granola (the best I've made yet), and baked oatmeal (a nice change of pace from my regular go-to baked oatmeal with apples and raisins). Lastly, the April cookie of the month!

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Feeling saucy

27/3/2013

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During a visit with my friend Sheena, many years ago, she whipped up this most delicious thing that she referred to as "spicy noodle sauce". I'm not sure where the recipe came from, but I made sure to get a copy of it. Then, for whatever reason, I only made it once or twice before it was inexplicably left to languish in my recipe binder. However, during a recent cupboard clean-out, I made the sauce again as part of a campaign to use up some aged rice noodles. I wondered if it would live up to my memory of it, if it would be as amazing now as I thought it was back then. And yes. It was. I had sauteed bok choy and tofu over noodles, but you could use this sauce as a dressing for a cold noodle salad, or maybe as a marinade. Try it and see - it's repertoire-worthy!

Spicy Noodle Sauce

Note: I've halved the quantities and tweaked the ingredients slightly.

Whisk together the following ingredients. The sauce should keep in the fridge for up to two weeks.

2 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp chili sauce (I used sambal oelek)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2" chunk of ginger, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp chili flakes
2 tbsp vegetable oil
pepper

In other food updates, The Last Crumb is a new-ish bakery on Main Street. After only two visits there, I'm prepared to say it may just be on par with Thierry (which is Vancouver's best bakery IMHO). It also turns out that The Last Crumb has afternoon tea on weekends; full report coming in April.

(By the way, this is a banana bread pudding with creme anglaise.)

And finally, the March cookie of the month. Solid!

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A weakness for kitsch

29/9/2012

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Kitsch: something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste (so says dictionary.com).

Well, when Tara and I were out on Thursday evening and spied the flamingo and fairy-light covered patio of the Rumpus Room, we had to investigate. This establishment definitely appealed to our tawdry and undiscrimating sensibilities. The menu contains items like deep-fried pickles! Breakfast waffle burger! Burger with a side of waffle! To be sure though, they have lots of "real" food to choose from as well, and I was impressed with the extent of their vegetarian options. We stuffed our faces with spicy green beans, chicken for Tara, waffles for both of us, and some delicious strawberry mojito.

As a bonus, we had the nicest waitress ever, who could not wait to go chanterelle picking; apparently she makes a mean boozy chanterelle soup too!

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Chocolate Cake Winner

12/9/2012

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Given my fascination with cakes that have grated vegetables in them, I needed only the tiniest of excuses to get around to making Joy the Baker's chocolate beet cake (as in, I've eaten all my brownies, and have buttermilk to use up).

Side note: I had leftoever buttermilk after making the buttermilk-basil-lime sorbet from Sprinkle Bakes. You should totally check out her blog; she is amazing.

Anyway, back to the cake. I made half the recipe, which yielded 10 cupcakes. While I'm no calorie-counter, I did shy away from the icing called for in the recipe, as it was replete with cream cheese, butter and icing sugar, and I've had a steady diet this summer of brownies and gin cocktails. This icing consists of a half a cup of icing sugar, and small quantities of softened butter, milk, vanilla, and grated beets. There wasn't quite enough icing to go round, but it's alright to have a few naked cupcakes.

And while we're on the topic of Joy the Baker recipe winners? This crostini is one of the best things I made this summer. Hurry while there are still decent peaches and tomatoes to be found!

Edited to add: Since I still had buttermilk to use up, and since I thought that leftover pancakes would be good food to take on a hike (I was not wrong), I subseqently made JTB's buttermilk pancake recipe. Now, I thought that I knew pancakes (as in, mix together flour, milk, eggs, and a bit of sugar, salt, baking powder and melted butter). I was wrong. These are the best pancakes I've ever made. Pancake epiphany. Amen.

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For Susannah (plus a little cooking and baking)

22/6/2012

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And now for a little pie talk. Pastry is not my forte; I feel pretty confident about baking in general, but when it comes to pastry, I am not my mother's daughter (my mom has nailed down pastry-making; she also has firm beliefs about lard and can crimp a pie crust like nobody's business). However, my confidence level has just gone up a notch. This week I made a pie and it was a winner: thank you, fast-easy-flaky piecrust recipe. It's made in the food processor in about 2 minutes from start to finish (I know - cheating). I didn't have sour cream on hand, so I used plain yogurt instead. The recipe is similar to the Smitten Kitchen galette dough, but even easier to make - no freezing of ingredients and no using a pastry cutter. Then things got even better when I washed out my food processor and made this incredibly delicious ginger-scallion sauce. And then I had a pile of dirty dishes.
The end.

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Highly recommended

5/4/2012

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When you make stuff, there are going to be duds. It's inevitable. But this week I've been on a winning streak.

On the weekend I finally got my act together and finished up another one of Gertie's dirndl skirts. "Dirndl" is a great word, and this is a great tutorial. My skirt looks a little flat in the photo, but it's fuller and pouf-ier when on.
I bought this yellow/grey fabric for a pleated skirt and didn't have enough, but I'm glad it became an incarnation of a skirt after all, and one I'll get lots of wear out of.

And stoveside this week, I've had a string of Smitten Kitchen successes. (Sometimes I think that I should call a spade a spade and just rename this website the "Smitten Test Kitchen".) Anyhow, I'm trying to work my way through recipes that I've bookmarked, especially as so many of them have been languishing in my favourites folder for months, or even years. (The oldest of them all? Chocolate babka. What am I waiting for? Seriously?).
So on Sunday, upon returning from a matinee, I was able to crank out both Red Kidney Bean Curry (a perfect combination of easy, delicious and healthy) with jasmine rice, and Pepita Granola (my best granola effort yet; despite the combination of honey/brown sugar/sweetened coconut, this wasn't overly sweet. I found that it needed a mere 15 minutes of baking time and it will now be my new go-to granola recipe).
Then yesterday afternoon there were hand pies. This pastry is just fantastic; it's easy to make, easy to work with, can be used for savoury or sweet, and is flaky and delicious like you wouldn't believe. For my variation on the recipe, I halved the quantity of dough, and made 8 hand pies to get the dough/filling ratio that I was looking for. Instead of peaches (obviously not in season), I sauteed apples with butter, brown sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and Calvados. My photos of them were really crappy, but rest assured that I died and went to apple-hand-pie heaven.
Next up? Not babka, but indian-spiced vegetable fritters. And dealing with the mess that is my kitchen.

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It's the most pizza-est night of the week

Beet-za

Portland-ing

A few things of note

Just in time for spring?

Feeling saucy

A weakness for kitsch

Chocolate Cake Winner

For Susannah (plus a little cooking and baking)

Highly recommended

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