La Gourmandesse

Best lunch of the trip was devoured here.

This week, Kevin and I took a trip to Quebec City. We stayed within the walls of the Old Town, and thoroughly enjoyed being transported a few hundred years back in time. Our days consisted mostly of walking and eating, with a small amount of shopping thrown in! Our hotel started every day for us with a lovely picnic basket of breakfast at our door. What could be more French than a breakfast of croissant et confiture?

My delicious meat pie.

A breakfast of pure carbs leaves you pretty hungry by 11am, so our first lunch at Aux Anciens Canadiens was highly anticipated. They open at noon and we were pretty much banging down the door. It is located in the old upper town in a sweet little heritage house, not far from the Chateau Frontenac. This gem of a restaurant only serves traditional Quebecoise fair, by young ladies in traditional garb, and what a treat it is. I went for the meat pie, which turned out to be a plate of heaven. The pastry was perfectly crusty and flaky, the meat wonderfully spiced (we could smell them baking from the street below) and the accompanying potato, red cabbage, relish and pickled beet were an expert match.

Sugar pie made with maple syrup.

Kevin had the daily special, which was fillet of sole au gratin, and was very pleased with the delicate and cheesy dish.  The best part of the meal by far, however, was dessert.  Maple syrup pie, a version of Quebec’s famous sugar pie, was perfection on a plate. Sort of like a butter tart without the nuts; it was buttery and sweet and accompanied by delicious real whipped cream.  My only regret is that we didn’t buy a pie to bring home!

Steak with a massive amount of frites.

Another noteworthy meal was dinner at Le Cochon Dingue, which a french speaking friend tells me means the “crazy pig.” This cozy little place is down in the old lower town, not far from the funicular, which comes in handy when you are too stuffed after dinner to climb the many, many stairs back to your hotel. Le Cochon is crazy in a fun and happy way, of course. This cheerful restaurant featured equally cute and cheerful female staff, with checkered tables and a bright, happy atmosphere. Several glasses of sangria made us feel even more cheerful, of course. We ate the “Dingue Formula.”

Strawberry cheese pie.

This is a version of the plat du jour, and for $30, we had soup, salad, steak frites, dessert and coffee. Let’s just say the funicular came in handy after that adventure. My favourite part was the dessert. I chose strawberry cheese pie, which was a pastry crust filled with a cream cheesy centre and topped with fresh strawberries and berry sauce. The sweet-tart creamy combo was heaven- and I hope to attempt a re-creation in my kitchen some day soon.

Frothy cappuccino.

On our last day in QC, our train left at 1pm. We saved our croissant for an afternoon snack, and went for breakfast at the place to be: Casse-Crepe Breton, just down the street from our hotel on Rue St-Jean. The Old Quebec theme repeated here- cozy, cheerful and staffed by cute young ladies. Kevin thinks that all the boys must be out driving delivery trucks for the summer, because they are certainly not working as waiters. Kevin and I both had savoury crepes to start, mine a ham-swiss-asparagus combo, and Kevin’s an egg-bacon-cheese creation. I think mine was better, but we’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m excited to try some savoury crepes of my own some day soon.

Fresh blueberry crepe.

We finished with sweet crepes, and I have to say my cherry one fell short of my expectations, it was cherry pie filling and cool whip. A total let down. Kevin’s had fresh blueberries and appeared to be significantly more tasty. I left half my cherry crepe behind, a bad sign as I am a compulsive plate cleaner! I think the key is to enjoy the savoury crepes and to skip the “whipped cream,” as it is really just a poor imitation.

Other notable eats included some really creamy brie and crusty baguette, greedily consumed as an afternoon picnic, as well as several pints of local brew- I really love their take on a blond beer.

Overall, our trip was filled with lovely sites punctuated by delicious food. I wouldn’t choose to go in summer again, the sidewalks were bursting with tourists by mid-week, but a fall trip several years from now is definitely on my list of places to go and things to eat.

Le Cochon Dingue, on a crowded street in the old lower town.

Make-shift berry container full of the "fruits" of our labours.

Few things are more fun and tasty to me than growing something myself and devouring it. Case in point, my recent penchant for tomato and cheddar sandwiches, with tomatoes courtesy of my patio garden. Living in a city for most of my life, I’d almost forgotten that sometimes tasty things grow wild, waiting to be discovered by birds and bears.

The berries soak up the Sangria.

Imagine my enormous pleasure at discovering mother nature’s gift to us on a recent cottage weekend in eastern Manitoba. I’ve never seen so many wild blueberries and raspberries. It was a reminder of what these fruits used to look like before we engineered them. The blueberries were so tiny, they were hard to spot, and the raspberries were perfect and so delicate you needed your softest touch to capture them.

Wildberry pancakes on the vintage cottage stove.

Braving hungry mosquitos and nasty black flies, we collected many cupfuls over the weekend. I think the cottage road was picked clean before our departure. These tiny treats made for several Sangria adventures and a stack of berry pancakes that rapidly evaporated from the breakfast table.

When was the last time a walk in the woods produced a bounty for your table? I very much enjoyed my reminder that there’s nothing more “local” than sneaking berries straight from the forest floor.

The glasses are waiting........

I’ve just passed the 6 month mark on my adventures in the world of blogging.  At first, it was satisfying simply to check out my stats and see that I had readers who weren’t me or Kevin.  And then I enjoyed seeing where the strangers that stumbled upon my blog hailed from. It’s fun to think about how different my wine life is from readers in Mumbai, Kiev or Katowice.

Lately, though, I’ve been craving some interaction with the blogosphere. I’m a bit weary of searching out affordable wines to try on my own, and have also hit a string of duds from $10 wine lists. I need some reader faves to keep things interesting- and hopefully more foolproof when it comes to drinkability.  I have only 2 criteria for suggestions:

1. Try to stay $10 and under (although I am straying to $12 and under as my quest continues).
2. If the wine is Canadian, the grapes must have been grown in the same place it is cellared.

As well, I’ve instituted a weekly poll to make things a bit more interactive. Suggestions for poll questions are welcome.

Cheers to (hopefully) many chats to come about reader wine favourites!

Thanks to Smaku for the lovely image.

The masterpiece.

We are dedicated pizza lovers, with a penchant for last minute trips to Woodenheads. Inevitably, the place is packed and we end up sitting at the bar- which is more fun than a table anyways. Their cheerful bar staff makes great mojitos, and the informality makes the pizza even tastier.

Kevin’s pizza of choice (I don’t think I’ve ever seen him deviate in 2 years) is the Sicilia. It is a classic- just tomato sauce, spicy salami, mozzarella and some fresh basil. I tend to mix it up, but always end up stealing a bite or two of this work of art.

This weekend, we wanted to put the basil in our herb garden to work, and make some pizza of our own. And so, with the help of Pasta Genova, we created our own masterpiece. That lovely little Italian deli sells their own fresh pizza dough for a steal, and also has everything else you need- the salami, mozzarella and sauce.  I love one stop shopping and jostling with the other Pasta G lovers for a space at their tiny counter.

Our pizza ended up a bit oval shaped, with a lack of a real rolling pin and the dough’s elastic nature, fighting to make it match our baking sheet’s shape seemed futile. I understand why pizzas are round! The dough from Pasta G was perfect, very elastic, not sticky and fairly easy to flatten out.

Shaping the dough.	Slathering of pizza sauce.
Deli perfection a la Pasta Genova.	Mozzarella coverage.
Into a 350F oven.	Basil chiffonade in progress.

We baked the pizza for 30 minutes at 350F, as suggested by the Pasta G staff. The result was wonderful- crispy crust, piping hot toppings and melty cheese.

Kevin & I agree that this gave Woodenheads’ Sicilia a run for its money. I think this is one my proudest creations. So simple, quick and easy, with a seriously intense pay off in deliciousness.  Perhaps pizza is about to become my go-to dinner.

And so, while it probably won’t replace the fun of a visit to Woodenheads for a true Sicilia, I’m proud of what we recreated. Paired with a bottle of $10 Italian red, my wallet thanks me for creating a date night on the cheap.

Finished deliciousness waiting to be inhaled.

Week 3 CSA Share

Kevin & I joined a community shared agriculture (CSA) program this year and were very happily surprised to get our first share at the beginning of June. My post about our lack of a garden and which farm we chose can be found here.

It is week 3 of the 22 week season, and I must say our fridge is overflowing with greens!  We have bok choy, leaf lettuce, spinach and mixed mustard greens vying for attention in the crisper as I write.  It’s hard to decide who to devote your attention to, especially as not all the greens have a terribly long fridge life.

Gigantic salads seem to be the order of the week. I think we’ll see how far we can take this before we can’t stand to look at another leaf. Luckily the greens were accompanied by radishes, small turnips, kohlrabi and green onions to make a salad a bit more interesting. I never would have thought a turnip would be tasty in a salad, but these are crisp and sweet, nothing like the bitter mash that is inevitably served at holiday dinners.

It sounds like the share will evolve over time, and not always be so “green.”  I’m looking forward to the appearance of carrots, beets, and peas.  We’re also growing some treats on our back patio: tomatoes, red peppers, spinach and every herb you can imagine.  So far the basil and mint have gone wild.  My next post should be about pizza and mojitos! Going local on those will be no problem.

Cheers to many tasty summertime salads to come!

Spaghetti and meatballs perfection.

In light of some recent rather nasty dental work, soft foods have been on the menu. I’m not sure that the dentist meant that I should eat spaghetti and meatballs, but since “ground meat” was on my list of ok foods, why not make the leap?

I love pasta. I don’t actually eat it all that frequently, but I seem to like to write it love letters. Also, after discovering Catelli Smart, I don’t feel nearly as guilty when I eat it. This dish combines two of my great food loves: ground beef and spaghetti. I don’t know if my Alberta childhood contributed to my beef fetish, but I just love the smell of ground beef frying with onions.  Add some salt and I could probably eat the whole pan.

I have recently figured out the perfect meatball. Finely mince half an onion, add a minced garlic clove, mix all that up with some ground sirloin and an egg, some salt and pepper and a few shakes of italian breadcrumbs and you will have a tasty product.  I make the meatballs large enough to just fill my cupped hand when I squeeze it shut. Drop them into a hot pan of oil and mix them around as they fry so that all the sides get nice and brown.

For this dish, I tried a new version of spaghetti sauce. Although I find Giada De Laurentiis to be horribly annoying on tv (she even tops Rachael Ray for me), she does make fabulous Italian food. I used her Marinara Sauce, with the addition of some fresh rosemary and oregano, and the substitution of diced tomatoes (including the juice) instead of crushed. It made the sauce a little chunkier and richer.

To finish, I threw the meatballs in the sauce and tossed the cooked spaghetti in with it all. Could this get more comforting?

Spring salad with baked salmon fillet.

Today on my walk home from work I decided to pretend that I am a chic European housewife who grabs her delicious fresh food from the market daily. Unfortunately I don’t live anywhere chic and European, and it’s too early for the farmer’s market. So I took my chic and European self (I am a Dutch/British mutt, after all) to Metro and began to ponder dinner options.

My wandering took me past the salad ingredients and the fish counter. Soon my basket was piled with fresh arugula, green beans, new red potatoes, blackberries and salmon fillets.  I decided to concoct a version of a salad that my Oma used to make for my mom, and my mom has made for me. I’m not sure if it’s Dutch in origin, or just happened to be made by my Dutch Oma, but regardless of heritage it is fresh and tasty.

You start by boiling the green beans and potatoes until just tender, and then give them a bit of time to cool down. I keep it simple, a bed of arugula, some blackberries thrown in for a sweet-tart kick, place your green beans and potatoes artfully on top of that, and finish with a dijon vinaigrette.

The vinaigrette is a take off on my friend Chloe’s mother’s recipe. Gisele is from the south of France and makes the BEST vinaigrette ever (as I imagine all French women must).  It’s just 2 parts oil, 1 part vinegar, 1 part dijon, and a dash each of sugar, salt and pepper.

Tonight I baked some salmon fillets and placed them on top of my salad masterpiece. We paired it with a VQA Riesling (Trumpour’s Mill from the Grange), and I must say the combo of European flavours made me feel very ready for the open air markets that spring promises.  Now if only I had some travels to the Continent to muse about while I digest…

Cooling the pie before adding whipped cream.

This Friday afternoon, as I made a key lime pie for Kevin’s mother’s birthday dinner, I reflected on being a modern woman.  I can identify with feminist theory, and believe that women are powerful creatures who really can achieve anything (given the opportunity).  It seems, however, that this school of thought can sometimes (hopefully unintentionally) devalue traditional female roles. I consider myself to be empowered and equal, but that morning while I was at work, all I could think about was getting home to make my pie.

It’s ironic that a 1950s housewife may have envied my employed and independent life, while her main role was on the homefront.  But all I could think while I used my new hand mixer to make the pie filling was how right it felt, me alone in my kitchen, making a treat that will bring happiness to someone else.  The female role of care taker seems inescapable, and I don’t know if it’s because society has told me I should be that way, but lately I have been wearing this hat well. Earlier this week I bought several yards of lovely blue flowered fabric and sewed new covers for our 2 Poang armchairs and matching foot stools.  I cannot describe the pleasure it gives me to stand in the living room and think “I made this.  It cost next to nothing and it looks damn good!”

The re-covered Poang set.

If only my junior high school Home Economics teacher could see this post! I think she foreshadowed my domestic nature back in grades 8 and 9, because she gave me the “Home Ec Award” both years. I found that a bit embarrassing at the time (although since I did not take Shop class it’s not as though I could have won that award), but now I wish I could dig out my silly little medal and photograph it for this post.  Today I wear the crown of domesticity with pride, perhaps because I have no children to make it a chore for me, and hope to always cherish my stereotypically feminine skills in the kitchen and at my sewing machine.

Cheers to all the other Domestic Goddesses out there!  May we always have the opportunity to have careers, so that while we’re at work we can daydream about all the fun we could be having at home.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, I love baked goods. More specifically cake, and lately, layer cake. There’s something so incredibly indulgent about a layer cake. No one makes a layer cake and then comments that they used whole wheat flour, or applesauce, or some other healthy ingredient that has no business being in cake. Layer cake is all about admitting that you love cake, and probably also the icing or whipped cream that encases it. And hopefully, it’s also a little about making something so beautiful that any person you share it with exclaims at your effort and talent.

And so, I was ecstatic when my friend Trina brought this confection over as her contribution to a dinner party. I know I just posted a chocolate layer cake, but this cake is so drool worthy that I had to share it as quickly as possible. We fed the leftovers to our curling team and the verdict is official—yum!  Trina learned this recipe from a friend in rural Quebec, and I’m so happy that she’s agreed to let me share it with you.

Trina's cake before we devoured it. So pretty!

Hazelnut Cake with Mocha Cream

Cake:

• 2 tbsp. flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 4 eggs
• ¾ cup of sugar
• 1 cup of hazelnuts (blended to a powder)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Using a mixer, blend flour, baking powder, eggs, and sugar for two minutes. Add hazelnuts and mix on high. Line two round cake pans with parchment paper and butter the sides. Pour batter into cake pans and bake on middle rack of oven for 20 minutes.

The aftermath.

Mocha Cream:

• 2 cups of whipping cream (35%)
• ¼ cup of cocoa
• ½ cup of sugar
• 1 tbsp. of instant coffee
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. vanilla

Blend all ingredients with a mixer on speed two, until cream thickens enough to form stiff peaks. After cakes have cooled divide into halves (totalling four). Spread first half with mocha cream mixture and begin layering until you have a finished product.

Image from Root Radicals CSA- July 2009 weekly share

For years now, I have wanted to belong to a community agriculture program. Last year, Kevin and I tried our hands at growing some tomatoes and herbs on the patio, but were dissatisfied with our limited space to grow food. We have since moved into a house with even less space to grow veggies (unless we planted some lettuce between our parking spots), and decided this year to take the plunge with a farm program.

After searching the web for local programs, we settled on Root Radicals Community Shared Agriculture, based from a Gananoque farm. For $400, you get a weekly share for the 22-week growing season, delivered to several pick up locations in the Kingston area. There will be several work bees throughout the summer that we hope to volunteer at and get our gardening fix for the year. I think a full share may be a lot of produce for Kevin and I, but hopefully it will force us to get all of our recommended servings of vegetables and give us the opportunity to share with friends.

The first delivery is slated for mid-June, and I don’t know how I will contain my excitement for the next 3 months.  I’m already thinking of future posts about the virtues of kohlrabi, kale and garlic scapes (all of which I have no idea how to prepare).  I look forward to expanding my vegetable bubble, and on this grey March day I am already thinking about all the crunchy green salads to come.