Look at what I made for dinner last evening!

Yesterday afternoon, my dad was on his way to Ottawa from Toronto so he stopped by to take me out for lunch in Kingston.  We went to Curry Original which was amazing and delicious and far better than the day old couscous I was planning on having.  These beauties came with him from my Mum at home… along with a kilo of mini eggs and 2 massive Belgian chocolate eggs.  I’m sure it was all meant to be shared between the 5 people in my house, I’m sure of it.

Sorry I’ve been gone so long, school and procrastination have taken over my time quite nicely but it’s going swell.  Last week of class is upon us so I must get back to the never ending assignments I’ve grown to love.

Here’s what I did.  I coarsely diced half of a red onion Found a pan large enough to lay everything relatively flat, then put in a bunch of carrots and a splash of olive oil.  Then I smushed 4 cloves of garlic under my knife and threw it into the pan.  After adding some s+p and rosemary, everything got roasted in a 400 degree oven for half an hour. It was superb and very easy.  You should try it!

Happy spring!

Clove studded lemon

For the past few days I’ve been fighting a cold. Waging war, and although the line keep moving back and forth, there has yet to be a clear victor.
K mentioned his arsenal always includes a hot toddy, in addition to the usual soup, liquids and sleep. I hadn’t tried one before so I concocted my first the other night. Instant success. Why hadn’t I tried this before? Its smooth, comforting, delicious, hot, delicious and I’m sure healthy.
And so this is night three with the added weapon in my defenses and whether or not it helps, I don’t care. It’s delicious.

Hot Toddy.

There are many recipes out there. Try a few, this is the one I have come up with.

1 tsp English Breakfast tea (the leaves)
1 T honey
a splash of Scotch (1-2 ounces)
1\8 lemon
4 cloves

1.  Boil water, and steep the tea and cloves for 2 minutes. Remove tea, add juice of lemon and the wedge, stir in honey and scotch and drink up.

This past Sunday I was invited to join Jesse and Melanie of Crackers blog on a field trip into the woods. They were meeting some friends who had a small maple syrup operation. It was a great day for it, sunny and warm and the Austins boiled down about 100 gallons of, well, the trees nutrient rich water. Check out the post here on Crackers for a full recap and far superior  pictures.

I just shared a cup of El Salvador La Montana with Kaelin that he brewed at Detour Roasters Cafe and we, as usual, discussed the success (or lack thereof) of the brew. I didn’t think much about it until I came here and noticed a few people looking at the post I did from a year and a half ago  about brewing coffee in a french press. Since that post I’ve been lucky enough to learn a few more things about brewing coffee from Kaelin and Detour so I thought I would share them here.

I won’t call it essential, because it isn’t, but a scale makes things SO much easier and more consistent when brewing coffee. Weighing not only the amount of coffee you use but also the amount of water will help you brew great juice and conjure those sometimes ghostly tasting notes in your cup. Try and find one that measures to 0.1g .

Using your scale it is simple to know how much coffee and water to use. Just apply a ratio of 60g of coffee to 1000g of water (or 1 litre). A half pot would be 30g of coffee and 500g of water. One 10oz cup (I’ve learned) is about 18g of coffee and 300g of water.
You can apply this ratio to almost any brew method (espresso and aeropress don’t work).

One piece of equipment that IS nearly essential is a good burr grinder (yes, technically you can make coffee without it but chances are it won’t be very good coffee). Hario sells two very good hand grinders and Baratza sells a line of great home grinders that range from $100 – $500.
I say it is nearly essential because the GRIND is so critical. Tiny adjustments in the grind are detectable in the cup. Too coarse and you will have a weak, astringent cup. Too fine and it will be bitter and muddy. And the range from too fine to too coarse is surprisingly small. It usually takes a few tries to nail down a good grind setting for a new brew method which supplies a balanced, sweet, clean cup. It is also the most difficult thing to convey in a brew guide like this. Every grinder (even in the same line of grinders) is different and will have its own setting for a brewer. I can only give guidelines relative to each other.

Enough preemptive babble, the brews!

Cupping:

I will put this in here only because I think this is how coffee tastes best. Most people do not want to drink coffee at home like this, however this is how we evaluate coffee. It is the most consistent brew method I know.
Use a french press grind and add coffee into a small bowl (around 5 ounces) or even glass and add 195-200F water to it. (Measure how much water fits in your bowl and apply the 0.06 ratio to find the amount of coffee to use. )
Wait 4 mins, take a spoon and push the crust around with your head inches off the top. This is breaking the crust and will release the aroma of the coffee. A light brown “crema” will form on top of the coffee. Remove this with a spoon, it doesn’t taste good! Simply let it cool a little, take your spoon and slurp away. Try the coffee at different temperatures as it cools, many coffees don’t reveal themselves until they are cooler.

Here is a much more detailed guide to cupping if you’re interested. Cupping is great to do with some friends also interested in coffee.
(The guide continues from the small menu on the right)

Hario V60:

My day-to-day brewer, a great way to whip up one cup at a time. I’m not going into detail about how to brew properly with it. People seem to be very opinionated about it, and in the end there are many ways to get a good cup. Here are two great tutorials: 1 and 2.
Keep in mind that you can adjust your brew time depending on how much water you’re adding. For example, adding very small increments of water often will have a longer brew time compared to adding lots of water less frequently with the same grind setting.
I use a grind that is very slightly finer than what most will grind for “paper cone”, or a regular drip method. It’s usually about 40% on a scale of espresso to french press.

French Press:

Still a great brew method, in my opinion! Coffee tastes best when it is cupped and when I do a french press I try to recreate a cupping as closely as possible.

1. Start kettle
2. Weigh out your coffee, grind* it fresh
3. Put coffee into french press, add water at 195-200F (about 30 seconds off boil for a kettle with minimal insulation) and set timer for 4mins. Leave the lid off.
4. When your timer goes off, stir the crust down into the coffee slowly and for 3 or 4 seconds. Wait another minute and then plunge the lid slowly.
5. Enjoy!

*  If you’ve ever cupped coffee then you have the proper grind setting already. If not, look for a grind that is a fair bit coarser than the a regular “paper cone” filter grind. If you have a local Starbucks with a calibrated Ditting then ask for around 8. The Ditting recommends 10 but that is too coarse and inconsistent. It is important that the ground coffee is as consistent as possible.
Finding the grind is the tricky part!

There are many more ways to brew up a great cup at home but these seem to be the most common. Search the web for tutorials, people love to write about this stuff.

Happy Caffeinating

Exciting things have been happening in Dundas. Quatrefoil restaurant was named the 7th best new restaurant in Canada by En Route mag, friends are holding whisky tastings, brewing beer, and just generally getting exciting about food.

One of the things that I’m really getting excited about is the prospect of spring on the horizon. With spring comes gardens. With gardens come food! I’m hoping to utilize my new back patio for just this.

One blog I’m particularly fond of, Crackers, has been posting about seeds and sourcing them and gardens in general recently. I’ve always been envious of the photos but now I hear they are planning a quarter acre on which they will plant a family vegetable garden. Absolutely worth taking some time to look through their blog.

Did I mention that Detour Roasters Cafe opened? Very exciting and it has been very well received! I’m not going to get into it much so here are two great posts from two great blogs on the cafe: one and two.

Personally, it has been fun serving the coffee I roast in such an amazing venue but I’ve had just as much fun peeping into the kitchen, talking with Tim, Hannah and Laurie about food! I will have to write a few posts about it.

Anyway, no recipes this time, just thought this was worthy food related news. Cheerio.

Ever had one?  If not, here’s an easy, sweet, thrown together recipe that tastes like summer.  Honestly, I need a little summer right now.

Geoff came to visit me in Kingston this weekend so we could explore a bit and go to a cool fancy restaurant.  It was delicious, I had mussles and he had beef tenderloin pappardelle, topped off with a glass of wine each…killer. We split a rare duck breast with sweet breads and beluga lentils (never had them before but they were delicious) as a starter to get us in the mood.  Mmmm

But back to the burritos.

Last weekend I was struck with the idea of homemade breakfast burritos when Geoff took me to Cool hand of a Girl on Dundas W in Toronto, and we treated ourselves to homemade Huevos Rancheros.  2 eggs, 2 corn tortillas, black beans, homemade salsa, lime and cilantro gave us a great start to a great day.  This weekend I figured we could hit some breakfast burritos, faraway foodie style.

I went to Metro on Thursday to collect ingredients and this morning, we kinda went with it.  My housemates were laughing at me standing on a stool to get that one picture in the window sill, but nonetheless, the pictures turned out pretty great.  Here’s what we did.

Ingredients

3 eggs
tortillas
chorizo sausage, cured(cut up into small cubes)
potatoes (boiled and cut into bite-sized pieces)
chives and tarragon (no cilantro available, would have been preferred)  (diced)
salsa
avocado
lime

Directions

1. Heat two frying pans on stove over medium heat and medium high, add oil to each
2. Pat potatoes dry with paper towel and add with chorizo to medium high heat
3. After they have been in the pan for a few minutes and are starting to brown add chorizo to pan on medium heat, then a minute later add eggs (which have been beat in a bowl with a teaspoon of cilantro (or taragon) and chives)
4. Quickly start moving eggs around and scramble them. Should take 2-3 mins.
5. Build your  burrito! Add some cheese to the eggs, lay on tortilla with avacado, potatoes, fresh herbs, lime juice, salsa, and anything else you like. These are extremely flexible! I also like a good dose of hot sauce (sriracha this morning).

Have a ball, do whatcha feel!

As has been noted here many times, Sarah and I were traveling through Portland last summer. We stayed with the most wonderful couple Dan and Chris who were friends of Sarah’s uncle. Dan was busy working and as a student of engineering so Chris showed us around for the most part. She knew what it was like to be on the road for long periods of time (traveled around the world for a year non-stop, for starters) and was therefore a very hospitable guide.
Thankfully we were able to take Dan out for lunch one day as a thank you for letting us crash at his place, and actually get to know him a little. He suggested a deli, Kenny and Zukes.
Kenny & Zukes was very quickly my favorite sandwich spot. Long story short they do everything in house from their bagels and rye to the melt in your mouth pastrami. Out of bounds good.
Coincidently, shortly after getting home I read an article in Gourmet about delis and they hailed a new direction of delis, or rather doing it the good old way again. Well, with a modern spin on everything but a back to basics approach and they used Kenny & Zukes of Portland as an example. They also mentioned a Zane Capalansky who was doing smoked meat right with limited resources … in Toronto! This article was putting Capalansky in the same category as Kenny & Zukes who had obviously left a lasting impression on me. I was so excited! Why it took me this long to actually get there is beyond me but for the first time in a long time I had two days off and so I used the second day to field trip to Toronto for a smoked meat on rye. I wasn’t disappointed.
The meat is a gorgeous deep red that simultaneously bursts with flavour and just melts in your mouth. Something of this quality is hard to come by and the dedication it takes to prepare the meat properly every week is inspiring. Since my first visit I’ve been back again for the smoked meat sandwich and I’m sure I’ll be back again soon. The only thing I can complain about is the service, but it sounds like I’m not the only one. Don’t be surprised if it isn’t great but the food makes up for it.

Read the article I found so long ago here:  http://www.gourmet.com/restaurants/2009/09/zane-caplansky-deli

Let me update you.
Start of the summer I vacationed to Italy on a beautiful tuscan hillside, that was great except for the fact that I couldn’t find any balsamic vinegar in Modena.  Huge bummer.

Then I got home and putted around the house a bit, baked lots and applied to every sort of job you could think of.

Got a job at Starbucks which kept me sane (you can only talk you your dog for so long…)
Then, out of the blue. BAM Sarah’s got 3 jobs.  Which is what has kept me from talking to you for so long.  Geoff really helped me out by putting in a good word for me at Nalco- a chemical engineering company close by.  They hired me on full time for the rest of summer.  I also got a chance to be a bussing girl at Quatrefoil.  I can’t thank Georgina enough for taking me on and being so hospitable! Great experience, I knew chefs work hard but holy moly it was quite something else to see.

Today is my first Monday off since the beginning of July and its so nice.  I did errands this morning, went grocery shopping and bought a tart pan (necessity) in order to make Geoff’s boss’ wife (try to figure that one out) a nice lime and blackberry tart for her birthday.  Everything is currently cooling in the fridge but I’ll let you know how it turns out.  The recipe is in Bon Appetit-June 2010 (I think, maybe July) and looked really easy so I figure it’s a good place to start. It also looked delicious.

Now I’m getting ready to head back to school which is a bit sad because the faraway foodies will be just that- quite far away.  But school’s important and I have a fantastic small little car that can get me home whenever I need.  My butternut squash will also need a lot of my attention because I plan on living on soup until next spring!

OH! I almost forgot to mention! I grew cucumbers this year and it was a huge success.   However I planted them in with the butternut squash (sans trellis) and now the two of them have taken over the yard. It’s a bit entertaining.

Share your summer stories!  I hope everyones been barbecue-ing and enjoying the beautiful sinshine

Ta-ta for now.

Sarah

Last week, I decided to open up a cookbook I got for Christmas a few years ago and try a whole pre-laid out menu.  Williams Sonoma Simple Classics Cookbook.  It’s a great book and has a lot of quick, easy main courses along with side dishes.  The ‘meal’ I tried to create went relatively well! I usually have no idea what to pair with what so it was nice to have a menu (with recipes) already set up!  It consisted of asparagus with capers and pine nuts, sauteed chicken with Parmesan cheese, roasted red pepper with oregano and finally, this delicious grapefruit granita for dessert.  Geoff always helps me time dishes etc. because more often then not, I  forget that it takes more than half an hour to cook potatoes or something silly like that.  If he wasn’t around to help with each dish, who knows if it would have turned out!  Unfortunately I didn’t snap a picture of the meal but I saved some of the best part (dessert) for a photo shoot later on.

Now this is a really easy dessert and  very refreshing which makes it perfect for hot summer afternoons.  It takes a few hours to freeze though so I would suggest preparing the dish in the morning/early afternoon so it has time to reach the proper consistency.  A granita is supposed to be like a slushie I think, a little chunky with a some liquid floating around.  With all of the grapefruit flavour in this one, it makes for a perfect chilled dessert.  And hey, if you have company over, don’t just go buy some ice cream and angle food cake.  Whip up some of these! You can do them plenty in advance it’s easy, quick to prepare and looks pretty flashy.  Here’s what you do:

Ingredients
6 grapefruits
1/2 c water
1 c sugar
2 fresh mint sprigs
orange zest for garnish (optional)

Directions
1. Juice all 6 grapefruits and strain through a sieve into a bowl. Place the bowl in the fridge to chill.
2. Over medium heat, combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Then add the 2 mint sprigs and boil for 1 minute.  Set aside until cool, then remove the mint.
3. Stir the syrup into the grapefruit juice until completely blended and put it in the freezer.
4. Stir the granita every half hour or so to ensure ice crystals don’t get too big
5. Serve right away and garnish with little mint tops if you’re feeling fancy (most of the time I forget the garnish)

PS. Sorry for being away for so long, summer’s got us quite busy!