An Homage to my BBQ

We're moving to a condo building and my bbq can't come with us. I feel like we're taking our old dog out to "a farm" from which it'll never return.

Oh the times we've had. The boozy night when I assembled it out of the home depot box after having drunk a bottle of wine (I never was able to find the ignition button).  The freezing day in February when we attempted to cook Mr Piggie on the rotisserie. The sad day when the knobs melted off, and the glorious day when the new knobs arrived!

We had a celebratory farewell last night... a bavette and a ribeye,

a round of the Brit's chips,

coleslaw, grilled asparagus....

But I am happy to report that the lovely Stef is moving into my old flat and will assume custody of the mighty 'q. Long may its rickety, ignition-less self live.

My Love Affair With Pork

BUT NOT ALL PORK. The product development test kitchen taught me too much about supermarket pork. And let me tell you it has a peculiar, particular taste which I do not care for. Wet sock? Garbage? Miscellaneous funk?

Our sterile way of describing it (in the development kitchen) was "age" as in "hmm, you can taste the age in this sausage". As in, the beast lived a bit too long in less-than-awesome conditions. Not a desirable quality.  It means that when I have to taste supermarket pork I routinely spit it out. Blech.

But oh man, when pork is good, lawd above it's good. This humble, plain loin (wrapped in glorious, naturally-raised fat) needed nothing more than salt. And roast potatoes, braised cabbage and garlic, roasted asparagus, carrot and pea salad. Then some simple rhubarb compote with rich vanilla yogurt.

Return to salad days

Out of all my Top 5 Single-girl Meals*, a bowl of greens (preferably red leaf lettuce) with feta, orange segments and chopped avocado must be the one I've consumed most. In fact, even just writing that makes my mouth water. Back in the day I even used to make a toasted seed-and-nut mixture to sprinkle overtop. There's something simultaneously virtuous and wicked about eating an enormous quantity of foods that are good for you.

As per usual, this week's version (also containing chick peas, grated carrots and celery) goes into my favourite plastic bowl which is light enough to hold in my lap while sitting on the couch watching Law & Order. It takes more than half an hour to chow through the entire thing, after which I'm totally full and only vaguely interested in a kitkat. And since I'm no longer a single girl, the Brit got his own bowlful too.

Top 5 Single-girl Meals
1. Tofu with greens and quinoa
2. Pasta with garlic, olive oil and whatever
3. Fried egg sandwich with pickles
4. Rice and dal
5. La Grande Salade

Friday night burgers

There's something new happening for me. It's this Friday thing, I believe they call it "TGIF". I feel peppier and generally more cheerful all day. Is it the promise of a stiff martini (x 2) at day's end? Or what?

Whatever. Food-wise, Fridays have become fake take-out nights -- curries, pizza, Chinese -- but homemade of course. And tonight, burgers. I've ranted about burgers before, but these may well have been the simplest and best of the bunch. A single pound of the city's best butcher's ground beef with salt, pepper and a splash of water, some Ace buns and a plateful of condiments...oh and a ton of cheap red wine on the side.
 

Yes, you're wondering about the little jug of scotch in amongst the condiments. It's for afters.

Note my hands going in for the kill.

That's coleslaw on the side -- good old coleslaw made with mayo and ketchup and yumminess. Perfect.

So...much...food

Clearly, I've been working and eating so much that all other duties have fallen by the proverbial wayside. To catch up, there has been:

Coconut lentil curry with Japanese eggplants and couscous (for the July issue).

Creamy and so comforting and good.

Shepherd's pie made with leftover lamb and featuring a cheesy mash crust.

With many lashings of ketchup and worcestershire of course.

Another of Cumbrae's ridiculous prime rib roasts. Gorgeous Yorkshires too and gravy. Oh and roasties and carrot+turnip and broccoli oh my!

And then this simple little plate of grilled polenta and etc -- a perfect vegetarian grill meal.

Grilled sandwiches

I'm developing a *top secret* teeny tiny little grilled number at work this week (among about 4,500 other tasks). It contains a meat, a cheese, my favourite yellowish condiment and something pickle-like. I SIMPLY CANNOT SAY ANY MORE WITHOUT COMPROMISING MY PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY. Except that it's all grilled into toasty yummydom and served with a summery alcoholic beverage and I "tested" it many many times over the course of the afternoon.

Put cheese and anything between two breads and grill...and I'm yours.

Breakfast

I'm not the kind of person who can "skip breakfast." I'd be a basket case by 10am, hands shaking, unable to concentrate and irritable as hell. So no matter how far I've slept in, there has to be breakfast. It doesn't have to be big or elaborate but it has to exist.

Most mornings a small bowl of Shreddies and a cup of tea is plenty to get me at least to elevenses. But on days when it's cold out, or I slept funny, or if there will be no elevenses (eep!), then the comfort of an egg is required. And having recently re-learned how to properly scramble an egg (thank you Jean-Georges and Bittman)*, today it was

One egg, one toast
cost: about 75 cents
location: the kitchen counter, eaten with my hands.

*Melt a small pat of butter in the pan (medium heat or lower), crack in an egg, sprinkle in some salt and immediately start whisking. Then you whisk frequently until it's just set. As Bittman says, "it's a revelation". Creamy, light, perfect.

Birthday Week 2010

Last year's Week of Eating Deliciously set in motion such a wonderful, jeans-tightening Year of Eating Deliciously, that I'm determined to repeat the experience: all week I'll eat some of my favourite things.

1
Every kind of Cheese
cost: about $20
location: friends' ski chalet

Here's a selection of Quebec's finest (all purchased at the grocery store in a little rural village. Sigh, what a great province). From left to right, Victor Berthold, Lady Laurier, Ermite and Le Voyageur. Please note the totally awesome 1980s wine glasses, the perfectly good $8 bottle of wine and the roaring fire. Life simply doesn't get better.

p.s. the Lady Laurier is ridiculous, bonkers, gahhwwww delicious.

Go go go mixer

The other day I came home to a frantic message on my machine. My girlfriend Mary had come face-to-face with a display of ON SALE KitchenAid stand mixers and, having coveted one since forever, was ostensibly looking for my blessing on her purchase. But since I wasn't home, she bought one anyway, and hopefully they'll all live happily ever after.

It seemed the right opportunity to put my own little black beauty through her paces, so Friday was pizza dough:

 Saturday a goat cheese souffle using Alexis de Portneuf's unparalleled Caprano cheese:

And Sunday homemade pasta that became spinach-ricotta cannelloni.

Go girl!

The Opening of 2010 BBQ Season

A gloriously sunny weekend brings out the best in the city. Everyone seems to be smiling at each other, luxuriating in a no-mitts+toque, coat-open scarfless freedom. A few yahoos are wearing shorts and flipflops, and everyone is busting out the barbecue sauce.

Ahh, the perfect bbq meal: flatiron steak, roastie potatoes, and a giant salad with beets and goat cheese.

Just ignore that fact that by the time we got home from a long leisurely sunny day walk we couldn't be bothered to clean the darn bbq so I cooked the (fatty, delicious) steak on my grill pan. There's always next weekend.

Maybe lame, maybe genius

You take the meat off a rotisserie chicken and layer it on baked tortillas with refried beans, various yummy crunchy things and sour cream with a chipotle or two mashed into it. Then you drink half a bottle of wine and fall asleep on the couch at 10:15pm while watching food tv.

That's my Friday night. I'm not ashamed.

Return of the Tofu

Experiencing a bit of a dry spell these last few weeks, brought on by a) the new job b) the olympics and c) my brother's wedding. It means I've not been cooking or writing. So tonight's homemade-by-me meal feels like an achievement after so many evenings of the Brit's (excellent) cooking, take-out, and Sad Excuses for Supper (such as the unfortunate mozzerella-chardonnay-toblerone marathon last week).

As mentioned, I heart tofu to the max for many reasons -- not the least of which is the way a vac-sealed pack of it that may have been purchased lo 2 weeks ago, is still hale+sound tonight.

Said tofu hit a marinade of soy, sesame and grated ginger, then went into a 350 F oven while I sautéed a sliced onion, some ginger and garlic, a red pepper and steamed some broccoli over the simmering rice. Then I remembered a miso dressing we used to make by the vat-ful at the hippie bakery-cafe -- puree 1 clove garlic in the food processor, add about 1/2 cup miso, a good glug of rice vinegar, a glob of Dijon, tons of pepper and then thin it out with water.

In about 20 minutes the whole affair came together in a giant pile of LE YUM which I then doused with a generous drizzle of miso dressing. And now for the women's gold medal hockey game and the women's long program.

Changes

I was just looking at my "what's the deal?" rant (in grey on the right) and wondering if it really still applies to my/this blog's raison d'être. Back in the salad days of Eating My Words I was a single gal who had pretty well forgotten the joys of cooking for oneself. But these days I'm all over it. Various factors, including the happy addition to my life of a gentleman food-lover, means that I am more likely to make homemade pasta on a weeknight than to pick up a styrofoam box of coconut mushroom soup (yum). And weekends are veritable food festivals -- planning sessions, trips to the market, cook-offs, baked goods.

That said, I've had take-out for supper twice in the past week, and the Brit has done all the cooking otherwise. Hm.

I'm moving onwards and upwards to a new job next week -- still food editing but more of it and with more of an everyday food angle -- which means back to long hours and (sigh?) more styrofoam boxes. So maybe I won't edit the "what's the deal" for another few weeks yet.

The T word

It always surprises me that TOFU isn't a superstar. (Among the non-veg/flex-itarians of the world, that is).

If I had to make a list of my Top 50 meals (home and away), tofu in its myriad forms would surely occupy more spots than duck and chicken combined. Cinnamon-braised tofu; Northern Chinese fried tofu; stir fried black beans with tofu; Kokyo sushi's age tofu; Buk Chang Dong's tofu kimchi stew. All so good, and that's just the beginning.

Some days, I just crave it, so I just fry up an onion, some tofu and some kale or spinach, douse the lot in soy sauce and Sriracha and eat the whole mess in front of the TV.

But frankly, I'm sick of bigging it up to people who scrunch up their noses in disgust at its mere mention, so I'm done with that. I'm just going to sit right down an enjoy myself a tofu-hummus-cucumber sandwich.

Mr. Pork Belly

Oh pork belly, how far you've come. You're the new darling of the restaurant world, and your resplendent fattiness is no longer spurned but adored. Look at all your lovely fat:

So much fat that we had to slice the crackling away and pan fry it in order to obtain the appropriate (addictive, eaten before the plates made it to the table) crispiness:

We serve your tender unctuous meat with roasted fennel, braised red cabbage, scalloped potatoes and roasted butternut. After a week of brown rice and kale, your awesomeness is balm (metaphorical and actual) to our own bellies.

A humble supermarket dessert

Take 1 tub Kozy Shack rice pudding (yum), 1 tub Liberte plain 10% mf yogurt (ga ga yum), 1 jar unsweetened applesauce and 1 apple. Mix however it floats your boat. At once decadent and yet somehow still virtuous.

Detox

As surely as a hangover follows a night of tequila and red wine, January is detox month. If I had a nickel for every time I'd heard that word this week, along with variations on "I'm not drinking til April", well, I'd have enough for a small coffee.

Truth is, I'm in the same bloated, too-tight-pants boat. Blergh. Although there was a distinct lack of boxed chocolates, frosted cookies and mixed nuts, the foie gras - goose -- pommes dauphinois - Champagne - whiskey extravaganza was over the top. And I drank enough booze and slathered enough bread with butter to be feeling the after effects. And it wasn't cheap either.

And so a few weeks of restraint have come into effect. To satisfy the duelling guilt trips of over-eating and -spending, step 1 involves eating less meat. I'm devoted to my luxury butcher, so even a pork chop is by no means a cheap meal. And his pork chops come with a respectable edge of fat.

So I returned to 2 favourites from my vegetarian days: Spicy Peanut Noodles with Egg and this, Chipotle Black Beans with Lime and Feta on Cornbread.

To celebrate a week of restrained eating, the Brit is roasting a very happy-looking wedge of pork belly for dinner tonight. That's ok, right?

New Christmas traditions

This year it was all about eliminating stress while increasing calories and pleasure.

1. eat Chinese take-out on Dec 24
Christmas eve usually involves some kind of blow-out meal like tourtiere, baked beans and ham or lobster and scallops in a creamy sauce followed by endless tins of shortbread and Florentines. The cook's exhausted and the kitchen's a mess. Someone inevitably croaks out a defeatist "I'll never eat again".

Chinese take-out tastes totally different from anything you'll be eating on the following day, leaves you very hungry for the next day's meals, and it requires no shopping, chopping or dishwashing.

2. enjoy a no-cook boozy breakfast on Christmas day
Much as I love my family's traditional eggs Benedict, a lazy holiday morning is no time to soft-poach a dozen eggs and make fresh Hollandaise. Good smoked salmon, cream cheese and rye toast provide a perfectly wonderful accompaniment to cold Champagne. And then everyone's happy.

3. roast beef for the family
It's so much less stressful than a goose or turkey. Or if gravy terrifies you, roast a ham.

4. then roast a goose a few days later -- just for yourself and your single best food-loving pal
A goose doesn't go too far, so save it for those who really care. Add some foie gras as a starter.  Use full-fat cream in the scalloped potatoes. Drink Champagne recklessly. Die happy...then turn the leftovers into Peking goose in Mandarin pancakes the next day.

5. make enough Christmas cake this year to last until next year
I found one of last year's cakes tucked away in my catch-all closet behind a suitcase and the humidifier. Still good.