Thanksgiving dinner

This year, I really wanted to do something other than turkey.

Don’t get me wrong – I think turkey is phenomenal and wish that I made it more frequently throughout the year – but after years of Thanksgivings and Christmases turkey-centric meals, I really wanted a change.  I also wanted something modern, because I tend to always rely on comfort food classics and the usual suspects.

The other change was that I didn’t spend weeks planning out the sides and thinking about it.

See, my birthday almost always falls on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, so sometimes I’m not entirely sure what night we’re having it until the day before, or sometimes of, so I’ve learned over previous mishaps to go with the flow a little more.

I shopped for fresh vegetables on Monday morning in the neighbourhood and didn’t plan out anything until an hour before I started cooking.

Had I gone completely insane?

Perhaps.

Because the capon was small (2 lbs. boneless), I knew it wouldn’t take too long to cook, so I just kind of winged it and I can’t believe how well it all worked out.

It was the.best.Thanksgiving.dinner.I’ve.ever.made.

Ever.

Menu

Lemon-Sage Roasted Boneless Capon

Trio of Tomato Confit with Mushrooms, Basil & Balsamic

Crisp Organic Green Beans

Baked Potatoes with Green Onions

Stuffing

p.s. I made a Portuguese soup for Thanksgiving Day lunch – kale, kielbasa and black bean. Crazygood.

p.p.s. Usually I think something;’s going to turn out and it doesn’t. This meal completely surprised me. And I couldn’t duplicate it even if you paid me. That drives me crazy, but makes me appreciate the good meals all the more.

Pining away

It’s not that my kitchen is so great.  It’s narrow and there’s little to no counter space and our stove is wonky and the fridge and freezer are too small.

But it’s mine and it’s mostly functional. and I miss it dearly.

See in this immense heat, it has become a place that I go only to get cold drink after cold drink and in the late evening, take out some salad or cold chicken to eat because really, you’ve got to eat something.

I miss the serenity cooking gives me.  Even when things are going badly with a dish, there is always hope that it can be saved.  I love the zen mind that happens when I’m chopping, stirring and whisking.  It’s like waves lapping against the shore.  It’s peace and quiet.  Mostly, anyway.

It is only the beginning of July and it’s been weeks of such intense heat, even my appetite has faltered (good lord, will it never end?).  I am trying to accept that it’s just too hot to cook and enjoy restaurant fare for my food book clubs and restaurant reviews.  I am trying to enjoy the “extra” time that I have now that I’m not in the kitchen for 2-4 hours a night.  I am trying really, really hard.

But it’s not working.

I guess that’s how I know it’s serious, that it’s complete and utter love, that it’s something that while I can live without it now, I can’t live without it forever.

Once that cool weather hits, you’ll be lucky to find me doing anything else.  I’ve got lists in my mind of dishes I want to conquer, pies I want to try and bake and meals that I want to create to sell to a nearby cafe.

And for now, I will try to be patient while the sun pours in our windows, heating up the joint and giving our cat various placed to sprawl until 9 p.m.  I will begrudgingly have salads and sandwiches and cold chicken (pictured above) for dinner as sweat pools in the crease of my arm.

But I’m telling you, that first hit of crisp, cool air – the place is going to be stacked to the ceiling with homemade food.

Just try and stop me.

Scrabble night – part 1

I’m sorry it’s been so long since I wrote, but if you live nearby, you’ll know that it’s been insanely hot here. Then there was the earthquake, followed by days of torrential rain. This does not make for good eating.

Last week, we had a Scrabble night, complete with an indoor picnic dinner. I spent the night before cooking in the damp heat for about 4 hours. If it was going to be over 30 degrees again, I didn’t want to heat up the place before the neighbours arrived.

I had decided on the idea of the indoor picnic due to our crazy, indeterminable weather. Plus it was too hot to eat anything too hearty.

We were having 2 fellas over who I was pretty sure could put away a lot of food, and there was Scott and I to consider. We can eat in one meal what I think some people eat in a day. That, and my irrational fear of not having enough food had me preparing quite the spread.

So I marinated 12 Dolly Parton-sized boneless, skinless chicken breasts: 6 in a vindaloo paste and 6 in a green coconut curry. I made my usual 85 sides, which this time around included broccoli slaw, mixed bean salad, herbed mini potato salad, and a melange of roasted peppers, artichokes, portobello mushrooms, red onion, black olives and fresh basil in an olive oil vinaigrette.

The apartment was like a steam bath after I was done. Scott, Cosmo (our cat) and I looked limp and heavy with water.

What had I done?

Hell’s kitchen – part 2

Or at least they should have, except that this week all of my events fell within the same time period, so instead of being at home, cooking my little heart out, I ate out every night from Monday to Friday.

Monday and Tuesday evening,  I had my food book clubs (4 of ‘em!),  where we meet in a restaurant that I’ve paired with the region of the book we’re reading each month.  This month we went to Zin, a high-end Chinese restaurant in Yorkville, where the owner Rockie created a special fixed price menu featuring Hong Kong delicacies, like we read about in our book of the month, The Piano Teacher.

Because I am hosting for 4 clubs over 2 nights (not including the other 2 I host earlier in the month), I get to eat twice.  The first night I had garlicky, incredibly tender Rack of Lamb with rice and broccoli.  The following evening, I tucked into Duck Breast served with a rich Thai curry sauce and snow peas.

I am grateful for the chance to have eaten there twice, as both meals were simply divine and for the first time in this book club, we had 100% satisfaction from our members.

Rockie also included a 1 lb. Lobster on the fixed price menu, which I’m going to go back for, as well as a bunch of interesting dishes on the regular menu.

Wednesday night I did a restaurant review – Northern Italian, which was okay.

Thursday, I got together with my Mom and she treated us to Chinese in the Beach – egg rolls, sweet and sour chicken balls, chicken chow main and Chinese fried rice, all for the insane price of $8.50 a person!

Friday, I was determined to make dinner at home, but my fella decided to take the afternoon off and we ended up downtown looking at furniture.  We wandered around until sudden hunger impaled us and we went for sushi nearby.

So just to reiterate:

Mon – Chinese

Tues – Chinese

Wed – Italian

Thurs – Chinese

Friday – Japanese

Hell’s kitchen – part 1

Well, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it?

That’s because it’s been so freakin’ hot out that in our little apartment, cooking anything on the stove means creating a sweat lodge in our very own home.

As you know, I tried there for awhile, drops of sweat plopping into my casseroles and roast dinners., but once it hit 36 degrees, I had to concede like and eat like sane folks – which meant little or no cooking.

Which hits me hard. It’s during these times of stove moratoriums that I want to cook and create more than anything else.

So I shopped instead, hoping that would sate me. I bought ingredients for salads and cold plates and as many interesting beverages as our fridge would allow.

But it turned out that what I thought would never happen, did.

We lost our appetites.  We ate maybe one small plate a day and spent the rest quenching our neverending thirst.  It’s the first time in probably close to a decade that I didn’t want to eat.

Eww.

Thankfully, after a solid week of intense heat, sleepless nights and lack of appetite, it cooled down and things resumed back to regular scheduled programming.

Balls!

So excited to be cooking again last night, I went for a walk to think through what I’d make.

Do you ever get so wrapped up in something that you can’t see your way out?  I was all over the place – minestrone soup, empanadas, homemade pizza, baked trout, keftas over quinoa salad.  I had looked through some cookbooks before heading out to get some ideas, but went to some fine food stores for further inspiration.

Thinking about how much fresh food I had in the fridge, I bought only an apple to eat on my way back, some sesame flatbreads to snack on throughout the week, some muffins for my fella and some pasta for either pasta salad (in case I just made a bunch of cold salads – it was almost too hot to cook) or to keep on hand for a baked pasta dish I had yet to try.

Since I had many of the ingredients on hand, I came back and decided to make Southern Sausage Stew from Jamie’s America, Jamie Oliver’s latest cookbook.

I loved Jamie when he was first starting out – his take on everything was so invigorating and refreshing.  But these last few cookbooks, I’ve found little to get excited about.  This stew sounded good though.

But after looking at it closely, I decided that some of my own additions would make it even better.

Instead of green and red peppers, I used yellow and purple carrots and I added in a Chinese eggplant, portobello mushrooms, black beans, leftover kale from the night before, along with the ingredients and spices he listed.

I have to say it turned out beautifully.

My dessert however, did not.

Having worked on this dessert for two night and many stages, I can’t believe that the part I couldn’t do was melting the chocolate.

As you know, I do not bake, so anytime anything calls for chocolate, I get nervous.  I mean, I barely eat it to begin with, so handling it doesn’t inspire confidence in me like working with any savory ingredient.

I was making surprise Cake Balls for my fella.  I had made an orange cake and left it in the fridge overnight so that it would be cold enough to form into big meatball size balls.

Done.  B-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l.

I simmered water in a pan and melted really good chocolate over it.

Good.

Now all I had to do was dip the balls into the chocolate and cover them, put them on wax paper and set back into the fridge to chill.

My sexy beau would be having delicious orange delights in just about an hour or two.

Except that the chocolate was so thick it didn’t really cover the ball, but swathed thickly around it, pulling it down into the chocolate.

F————————————–!

Then, I did the worst thing I could possible do – I added a little water to try and thin it out.

I don’t know these things.  I’ve baked about 10 times out of my life, so I didn’t realize this would create an immovable fudge!

I tried adding a little milk to further thin it.  Now I had a Dairy Queen Blizzard on my hands.

So I tried to save it by putting it in the microwave to melt it at least enough that I could hand form it around the balls.

Three fingers on my right hand have chocolate second degree burns and my wonderful little Cake Balls that I wanted to surprise the love of my life with now look like Tim Bits with sad melted fudge chunks on the top.

I was feeling really cocky earlier in the evening, because I thought my version of the stew was more Southern and creative than Jamie’s.

He must have heard me.

I think it will be awhile before I get the confidence to bake again (and I didn’t have any to begin with, so now I’m starting at like negative 10 or something).

Great.  And I just ordered 10 new baking books from the library…

Food, glorious food

I finally made it back to the stove.

After a long day of walking the city, I came back to my hood to do a big grocery shop.

Ahh, so nice to have fresh goodies in the house!  But before putting them away, I cleaned out the fridge – ooh, there’s that lovely chicken chili I made last week and the pesto pasta that I thought we finished…

Then I put everything away.  With one small cupboard and one small fridge, this always means that I have to take out the majority of the items before I can make room for everything.

Really, it’s a whole thing.

Two hours after I had come through the door, everything is finally put away and the kitchen looks pristine.

It’s now time to make dinner.  I pull everything out and start the assembly.

My menu for tonight is:

- Roast skinless, boneless chicken breasts stuffed with wild leeks, fresh basil and lemons.

- Boiled new potatoes with olive oil and fresh dill

- Organic kale with garlic and horseradish

- Chopped salad of romaine, yellow peppers, endive and radish

I was tempted to do a big soup as well, but all that chopping and cooking took another hour or so, and I had started on a dessert (yes, I’m trying to learn to bake) that is going to take a couple of days, because you have to let things cool in the fridge in various stages. So despite how tired I was from the whole process, I was very close to just cooking all night.

However, I remembered that there is still tomorrow and Monday is a holiday here, so I may take a couple of hours in the afternoon to do something slow-cooked.

It is so good to be home, cooking again.  I am like an actor who just found out she got the part.

Tonight’s audition: finish the 3-part dessert (it’s a surprise), homemade soup (I think something minestrone-esque) and something from the new Jamie’s America cookbook.

Longing

Although I haven’t eaten out every night for the past 2 weeks, it sure feels that way.

Between book club meetings at restaurants, my fella’s birthday dinner out, dinner at a new diner with my Mom, I’ve been out a lot.  A ton.  More than I’d like to, but that’s what happens sometimes – no matter how carefully I plan my schedule, there is always a week or two where everything smushes up against one another, leaving me craving to cook at the stove like many women leap outta their bodies for a piece of chocolate.  Then when I was home, I made simple food: soups, salads and pasta.  Quick things I could do in between writing, editing and the various events that have made the last couple of weeks a frenzy.

Last night at dinner with lovely colleagues of my fella, the restaurant “reflected the seasons and regional Pugliese cooking.”  Over neatly procured appetizers and handmade pasta, we talked about restaurants, cooking, barbecuing and of course, work.

What got me is that while our evening was filled with fun and laughter, I felt like the food didn’t live up to the hype.  This restaurant, after all, was supposed to be the “real deal” but actually it was just boring  fare that you could make at home.  You absolutely could.

When we got home, I poured over cooking magazines and some new  recipes I had collected and I so wanted to stay up, cooking my little heart out.

Instead, I went to bed like the responsible adult I am and will try and patiently wait until I can be at the stove again.  At this point, it’s looking like Saturday might be the first chance I get.

In the meantime, I am going to dream and swoon and think about all that I am going to make once I get the few precious hours I need.

I can’t wait.

Surprises abound

What I love about cooking is that you don’t always get it right.

But sometimes you absolutely do.

That beef curry was fanfreakintastic.  Best beef dish I’ve made in years.  YEARS.

I learned two vital things that night:

1.  My method of cooking stewing beef for only an hour and a half is why my stews are never memorable.

2.  Cooking Light Magazine has a piece a couple of months ago about The 25 Most Common Cooking Mistakes that offered a lot of advice I already knew but one that really stuck out – You don’t know your oven’s quirks and idiosyncrasies.

See, a couple of months ago, my sexy fella and I were making dinner together (something that doesn’t happen very often because we both cook very differently and because there’s not a heckuva lot of room to move around one another).  We were making Korean pancakes – MMM! – and I was pouring them into the pan while he flipped them (you’ve got to be quick with those l’il ones) and we noticed that they would slowly cook on 7 but once we upped the element to 8, they started to burn.

We had noticed inconsistencies separately before but not thought much of them – ’til now.

Which I confirmed when I made Beef Vindaloo Curry this past Friday night.

Wanting to brown the beef before adding the other ingredients (did you know that Jamie Oliver no longer believes/does this?  Gasp), I started it on 8 to get a nice seared side, but before I knew it they were blackening.  Oh no, I’ve got like 8 veggies and 5 other ingredients yet to add!  It can’t be ruined already!

I managed to save them by quickly turning the range down, and then up.  Down and then up again, until all the beef was done.

I thought that ordeal was over as I set everything to a low simmer.

Hmmm.  When I turned the dial down to 3 – nothing.  It wasn’t until I brought it back up to 6 that it started bubbling.  So back down to 3 it went.  I left it to stew, literally, while I went back to my desk to do work.

I heard this weird popping noise.  Now, sometimes Cosmo likes to clean between his toes and makes this awesome crunching sound, but he was sound asleep just a few feet away at the end of the bed.

I went out to the kitchen and the stew was bubbling away like it was on 6 or 7.  So I turned it down to 2.  15 minutes later, nothing.

It went on like this for the 2 1/2 hours that it was on the stove.

Our stove is not just quirky.  It’s possessed.

At first, I was miffed.  Great, here I am trying to learn to be a great chef and I’m working with an old jalopy!  But now I realize that if I can cook great meals on this puppy despite its massive weirdness, then I will be a great chef after all.

The roast chicken dinner I made tonight was okay.  The sides were what made it – summer crisp corn, wild and long grain rice and Swiss chard with petit haricots.

That chicken could have been better.

That’s why I’m going to work on figuring out the oven’s quirks next.

On the lamb

After many, many, many nights of eating out for book clubs, events and restaurant reviews, I am back at home cooking tonight.

And I’m making lamb.

I know I should be making something Mexican to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but I’m going to delay our celebrations until the weekend when I can really savour the process of slow cooking things and make some more time-consuming dishes.

So tonight I’m making lamb and I’m excited!  I am heading out after finishing work to pick up some ingredients.

Tell me what your favourite way of preparing lamb is?  Do you often buy the same cut?

I’ll let you know how it turns out.  In the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy thinking about it…