Australia: The first week

Hello everyone! We've been in Melbourne for nearly a week now, and have had a chance to get our bearings. Here's how the first week has been.

On our way to Pearson -- bye Toronto!

The Flight
We left Toronto at 6:40pm Saturday March 16th and flew to Melbourne in 25 hours (with a stop in Los Angeles). The Toronto to LA leg was easy with wifi on the flight, snacks (purchased at Pearson for the mere price of a kidney), and extra leg room on our seats. The flight to Melbourne was long. The in-flight entertainment had a display with Los Angeles time, Melbourne time, and time remaining. I celebrated both when the hours remaining dropped to single digits and when there was less than an hour left. The food was actually really good (beef stew for dinner; eggs, spinach, tomato, and cheese for breakfast), so way to go Qantas.

The Arrival
We arrived in Melbourne at 9:20am Monday March 18th. It was grey and cloudy, but a huge relief to get off the plane. We got through immigration very quickly (I've been asked more questions trying to return to Canada), collected our bags, and met the driver we'd hired to help us get them into the city (we're staying in the neighbourhood of South Yarra, it's very trendy). It didn't take long at all to arrive on the doorstep of our temporary accommodations with all our belongings several hours ahead of schedule.

South Yarra: Airbnb success
At this point, the rain had stopped so it was warm and sunny. Dave guarded our suitcases while we waited for our apartment to become available, and I went to get something cold and caffeinated in the commercial area nearby (Toorak Road, for those following along with a map). At least along Toorak Road, they are crazy for French patisserie. Everywhere has crepes, macarons, and croissants, so it kind of felt like being at home in Montreal, except I've never seen a coiled danish called an "escargot" before. I'd read in advance that Melbourne is very into coffee and cafe culture, but I didn't realize they had new names for everything I thought I knew. The "iced mocha" I ordered ended up having ice cream in it, which was both unexpected and delicious.

The garden with its resident ginger cat.

Settling in to our temporary apartment.

Eventually, we got our things into our apartment, changed clothes, and had lunch at "kanteen" -- a very cool restaurant on the Yarra River. I had the best lamb, green bean, and okra curry ever, and Dave had (delicious-looking) smoked salmon and poached eggs.

The Yarra River from kanteen's patio.

We booked our accommodations on airbnb, partly thanks to a recommendation from Catherine E. We're so happy that we did, we really like the place we're staying, especially because we aren't paying hotel rates.

Life
Since the first day, things have been a bit less interesting, and a lot more like work. We've had to set up cell phones (mobiles) and banking, and find ourselves an apartment (which is an ongoing thing). I've been into work, met a bunch of wonderful people, and begun a lot of health and safety training along with a little bit of science. The weather is lovely (not too hot, not too cold), and all the conveniences we're used to at home are available here.

We bought our first Aussie appliance, a coffee grinder, because most of the coffee in the grocery store is espresso ground, and we need a coarser grind for our aeropress. Of course, we will keep everyone posted on the fun things we do here, but we will need to get past the stage where we are spending our days filling out forms.

Birds-of-paradise, just an everyday garden plant.

All our love,

Liz and Dave

Coffee Glossary
coffee = espresso
long black = americano
flat white = latte no foam
iced coffe = ice cream, coffee, sometimes whipping cream on top
iced mocha = ice cream, coffee, chocolate sauce, sometimes whipping cream on top

Coco's Salsa

Now that this has happened:

A stack of seven copies of my thesis, ready for a trip to
the Psychology Department and Graduate Studies

I have time to do things I like again. Like make Mexican food.

I can't take credit for much beyond the photos here, because the recipe is a treasure from the Poolman family, courtesy of a neighbour.

Ingredients:

1. 6 medium-size tomatoes
2. 1-2 jalapeno peppers
3. 1-2 cloves of garlic
4. 3/4 cup cilantro leaves
5. 1 tsp salt

The recipe recommends getting bargain tomatoes from the old-food section, but I am using the only tomatoes I could find. Test the jalapenos for heat; I ended up using one big jalapeno but because it was pretty mild I threw in some seeds too.

Wash the tomatoes, remove any green stems, and arrange them on a baking tray. Bake at 250˚F for about 2 hours, until they begin to brown.

Allow the tomatoes to cool for a bit, and when they're cool enough to touch remove their skins and cores, working over a bowl so as not to lose any juices. Cut open each tomato to separate the seeds and juice from the meat.

Juice

Place the meat in a food processor and gently pulse until it has broken up into small chunks. You could also do this by hand, but I was way too lazy. Add the chunks back into the bowl.

Put the tomato mixture into the refrigerator, and mince garlic and jalapeno. Cut cilantro leaves coarsely.

When the tomatoes have cooled to at least room temperature, add cilantro, garlic, jalapeno, and salt. Stir to combine.

It's best with a bit of time in the fridge to let the flavours mingle, but is also delicious right away.

Unphotogenic Banana Zucchini Bread

In the spirit of not wasting food, but sticking true to my refuses-to-eat-spotty-bananas roots I decided to make banana bread to use up those bananas. I didn't have much in the house by way of food, but the improvised results were pretty delicious. The photo is kind of ugly though. 

Ingredients: 

1. 2 ripe bananas, smushed
2. 1/2 zucchini, grated
3. 1/3 cup coconut oil, melted
4. 1 cup brown sugar (loosely packed)
5. 1 egg, beaten
6. 1/4 tsp almond extract (I'm sure vanilla would do as well, I just never have any)
7. dash each of cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg 
8. 1 tbsp baking soda 
9. 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
10. (optional) chopped walnuts
11. (optional) tablespoon flax seeds

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. combine oil, bananas, and zucchini 
3. add egg, sugar, spices, and almond extract and mix
4. add baking soda and salt and mix
5. optionally, add flax seeds and/or walnuts
6. add flour and mix. Yum.
7. Butter and flour a 4x8" loaf pan
8. Put batter in pan and bake for 40-60 minutes
9. Remove from oven when finished, cool and remove from pan

Quinoa Salad #1 (Mushrooms and nuts)

As a recovering pasta addict, working quinoa into my diet has been an important coping strategy for me, so I have been inventing recipes based on what I have in my fridge and cupboards. I also like to hide vegetables in things, so salads are right up my alley. This isn't actually quinoa salad #1, but it's the first one that actually turned out delicious. Apparently part of being a grownup is eating your kitchen experiments even when they taste gross. 

This recipe makes two smallish portions (my dinner and lunch, I'd multiply everything except the lettuce by 1.5 if making it for two people, or add a meat to make it a bit heartier).

Ingredients: 

1. Half a cup of dry quinoa
2. 1/4 cup crushed walnuts
3. 1 Tbsp flax seeds
4. 1 portebella mushroom, diced finely (shut up, mushrooms are a perfectly legitimate vegetable)
5. 1 shallot, in thin slices
6. 2 Tbsp coconut oil
7. 6 leaves of green lettuce (three per serving), in bite size pieces (Baby spinach would probably be good too, but I didn't have any)
8. Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Put quinoa in a saucepan with 1 cup of water, and bring to a boil. Keep an eye on it, and when it boils, bring it down to a simmer and cover and cook for 10-15 minutes. 
2. In the meantime, melt coconut oil in a skillet and sautée the shallot and mushroom.
3. I added salt generously here, because I was afraid it would taste gross. It's ok if this mixture is over-salted, because the quinoa is kind of bland on its own. Add pepper too, but no need to go crazy.
4. When the mushroom looks almost done, add walnuts and flax seeds - toss them around until they're toasted and remove the whole thing from the heat. 
5. My quinoa wasn't done, so I took this opportunity to fill my dinner bowl with lettuce.
6. When the quinoa is done, empty it into the skillet and mix everything around.
7. Serve the quinoa and mushroom mixture over the lettuce and enjoy. I hope. 

Steak au Poivre (also: Yum Yum Yum)

Peppercorn heart from findingthenow on Flickr

Dave makes this maybe once every couple of years, and tonight was my lucky night.

Note: there is no photo for this recipe because I did not want to pause before digging in. Cognac, cream,  pepper, and a wonderful steak are not the sort of things that invite self control.

What you need:

 - 2 beef tenderloin steaks (filet mignon)

 - 2 tbsp whole peppercorns

 - 1 tbsp unsalted butter

 - 1 tbsp olive oil

 - kosher salt

 - 1/3 cup + 2 tbsp cognac

 - 1 cup heavy cream

What you do: 

1.  Remove steaks from refrigerator 30 minutes to 1 hour before cooking.   Lightly salt with kosher salt.  Cover and let sit.

2.  Crack peppercorns with rolling pin, skillet, or mallet.  Works best inside a ziplock bag.

3.  Spread cracked peppercorns on a plate.  Firmly press steaks into peppercorns, coating both sides.

4.  In a skillet on medium heat, melt olive oil and butter.   Cook steaks 4 minutes per side for medium rare.   When finished, set steaks aside and cover.  Do not clean skillet.

5.  Remove skillet from heat and add 1/3 cup cognac.  Ignite alcohol with a match.  When flames die, return to medium heat and add cream.  Whisk cream for 5 minutes or so, until it coats the back of a spoon.  Add 2 tbsp cognac and salt to taste.

6.  Slice steaks into strips and plate.  Pour cream over steaks.

7.  Enjoy with a nice Bordeaux.  2005 is a very good year.

It's Monday (in Two Acts)

Act I

It doesn't feel like Valentines, because it's rainy and cold and I'm sitting in a conference room but no students have come to see me (even though colour vision is a really hard topic and I think they'll need help*). It felt like Valentines yesterday when we spent the afternoon being lazy and talking about guest lists and dresses and venues and nothing. Then we dressed up and went to my favourite Italian anything restaurant (hi Ennio!) with new dear friends and ate until we could barely walk home.

It was kind of like this:



Still, it reminds me of a rainy and cold Valentines-on-a-school-day a lot of years ago when Dave and I were studying for a midterm in Douglas Library, and I was telling him about the chocolates I'd gotten in the mail from a new not-quite-boyfriend-yet and he was happy for me and we went to Subway for lunch.

Act II


The thing that makes Dave laugh at me/tear his hair out the most is how literal I can be, so when this joke popped up on my Google Reader, I sent it to him right away:

A wife asks her software engineer husband: "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get 6!" A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk. The wife asks him, "Why the hell did you buy 6 cartons of milk?" He replied, "They had eggs."


At least I haven't done that. Yet. 


* Though, I have plenty of work to do that I'm writing schmoopy** blog posts instead of doing so there's plenty of evidence that we don't always do what's best for us. 
** I've added an "aww" category in its honour, we shall see if it ever gets used again.

Love of my life: Macaroni and Cheese

Eat Make Read

It made my winter when I found Celia's rendition of this recipe on Eat Make Read. I think the trick is the goat cheese - it makes me want to skip the baking process and just eat the sauce with a spoon. Depending on what has been available at my grocery store, I've substituted some variant of aged cheddar for the gouda and parmesan for the cheddar (proportion-wise). Yum.

An Appetizer Party: Grand Finale (Dessert)

They're just so darn classy.

Tuxedo Strawberries

Ingredients:

1. Fresh strawberries (~30)
2. White melting chocolate (~ 500g) 
3. Dark melting chocolate (~250g)
4. Milk melting chocolate (~250g)

Wash and dry fresh strawberries, skewer with toothpicks through stem for easy dipping and eating. Prepare a baking sheet or two with parchment or waxed paper - you'll set the strawberries here to cool once they have been dipped in chocolate. 

Melt white chocolate in a double boiler or microwave. Dip each strawberry in the white chocolate and place it on a baking tray. If you gently scrape the back of the strawberry along the side of the bowl to remove excess chocolate, there won't be a puddle of melted chocolate on the tray to deform the silhouette of the berry. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Combine dark and milk chocolate and melt. Dip each strawberry twice, at an angle, to form the sides of the tuxedo. Again, scrape the back of the berry to preserve its shape. Using a pastry bag with a tiny tip, pipe little buttons and bow ties (like squared figure-eights) to finish off the tux. Allow to cool one more time, then serve and bask in the praise for your adorable dessert.

We followed the method suggested by this guy on YouTube, but added the toothpicks because it made the process easier.

For the rest of the party, catch:

The Cold Appetizers

The Hot Appetizers

An Appetizer Party: Hot Appetizers

In my true dedication to procrastination, I have delayed this post by nearly a week. It wasn't when we were preparing the appetizers that I thought "This a ridiculous number of different things to serve", it was when I had to go through and write up the recipes.

Without further delay, here is the thrilling next edition to "An Appetizer Party" the tale of New Years Eve 2010 chez Arsenault, in food.

In case you missed them, Catch the cold appetizers here.

Blue Cheese Bites

Ingredients:

1. 1 tube Pillsbury biscuit dough 
2. 4 oz. blue cheese (we used Stilton)
3. just under 1/2 cup unsalted butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Melt the butter in the bottom of your approximately quiche-sized pan. Or rectangular pan. It's flexible. Release the biscuit dough from the tube, and cut the rounds into quarters. Sprinkle crumbled blue cheese evenly over bottom of pan. Lay the dough on the cheese. They'll expand, so don't worry if there are a few empty spaces. Bake for 12-15 mins until biscuits are golden. Allow to cool for 3-5 minutes, and enjoy with sparking wine.

Mom's Marinara Sauce

This delicious marinara is used for both the olives and the meatballs. Leftovers can be reheated, thinned with milk, and served as an awesome tomato soup. 

Ingredients:

1. 106 oz. San Marzano canned roma tomatoes with basil (any brand will work, though note that the best way to get mediocre tomato sauce is to buy the cheapest canned tomatoes.)
2. about 1/4 cup of butter
3. 2 onions, diced
4. 2 stalk of celery, diced
5. 1 carrot, grated
6. Salt and pepper

Directions:

Put butter in a big pot, heat. Add onion, celery, and carrot, season with salt and pepper - no need to measure, just do what feels right. Sautee until soft. Add tomatoes, and puree. Reduce for 2-3 hours to enhance the flavour, if you have the time.

Best Meatballs Ever

Ingredients:

1. 1 lb ground beef
2. 1 lb ground pork
3. 2 cups bread, cubed-no crust (baguette or rustic italian)
4. 3/4 cup milk
5. 1 ½ tsp sea salt
6. freshly ground pepper to taste
7. 1/4 cup flat leaf parsley - finely chopped
8. 1/4 cup pine nuts - ground
9. 2 cloves garlic - finely chopped
10. zest of 1 lemon
11. 1/3 cup grated pecorino or parmasan cheese
12. 2 eggs - lightly beaten
13. 1 ½ cups Panko Japanese bread crumbs
14. 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil + extra if needed
15. Marinara sauce

Directions:


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl soak the bread in the milk. In a large bowl, using your hands, combine the beef, pork, parsley, garlic, pine nuts, lemon zest, egg, cheese, salt & pepper. And Panko. Then remove most of the Panko and some of the parmesan cheese. Squeeze the milk from the bread and incorporate into the meat mixture.

Wet your hands a little (prevents sticking) and take around a heaping tablespoon of meat and form into a ball, then flatten down slightly so they wont roll around in the pan. Next coat them in the Panko and parmesan you removed and set aside. Heat the oil in a large skillet over med heat and fry the patties until they're nice and brown. (note: you're not cooking them all the way through, just browning the outside.) Arrange them in a large casserole dish or roasting pan in one layer.

Pour the marinara sauce over the meatballs evenly, adding a splash of olive oil over the top and place in the oven for about 35-40 minutes. When they come out top with freshly grated parmasan or pecorino and some finely chopped parsley for garnish. Makes a ton of bite-sized meatballs.


Fried Olives

Posting this recipe makes me feel like an impostor, because I don't actually like olives, so I didn't taste it. I do have it on good authority that it is a delicious and unusual way to enjoy olives. Apparently the combination of sausage, olive, cheese, bread, and marinara is reminiscent of pizza. I think that's a good thing.

Ingredients:

1. Pitted, big, green olives
2. An italian sausage
3. about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese
4. a splash of olive oil
5. about 1 cup of flour
6. 2 eggs, beaten
7. about 2 cups of Panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
8. A lot of oil for deep frying. We used peanut oil because we didn't have enough vegetable oil.

Directions:

To prepare the stuffing, cut the italian sausage out of its casing and sauté to cook, breaking it up into small pieces of ground meat. When it is cooked, put it into a food processor with some parmesan and a bit of olive oil and puree into a paste. It should be about the consistency of paté, so add parmesan and olive oil slowly until you reach the desired consistency.

Using a pastry bag and tip, pipe the filling into the centre of the olive (we had to dig out cloves of garlic to do this, you may need to remove pimentos or seeds depending on the olives you buy). 

Once the olives are stuffed, bread them by coating in flour, then egg, then panko. If they're too dry for the flour to stick, you can brush them lightly with olive oil. They can be kept refrigerated in this state for a while (up to two weeks) if you want to get your prep work done in advance, and then you can fry them right before they will be served. We fried them later that day. 

Pour oil into a large pan (with deep-ish sides, the oil will be very hot) so that it is about 1cm deep.  Lower olives into the oil (I think we used tongs to do them one by one). Cook for about 2 minutes, turning halfway through. They should be golden brown when they're done. Remove to a paper-towel-covered plate and then serve in marinara sauce, though rumour has it that cocktail sauce works well too. Watch them disappear. 

Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts

Ingredients:

1. 1lb of thick-cut bacon (smoky, not maple or honey, or any other strange flavour)
2. About 40 large, whole water chestnuts 

Directions:

Cut the strips of bacon in half. Wrap each water chestnut in half a strip of bacon, and skewer with a toothpick. These can be set aside overnight and cooked later.

Lay the skewers out on a baking tray, and cook at 350-400˚ for about 45 minutes, or whenever the bacon looks done. Serve immediately with some sort of dipping sauce. Cocktail sauce is delicious.

Chicken Skewers

This recipe came from Allrecipies.com

Ingredients: for 10 skewers

1. 3/4 cup soy sauce
2. 1/4 cup sugar
3. 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4. 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
5. 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
6. 2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch pieces
7. 6 green onions, cut into 1-inch pieces
8. 8 ounces fresh mushrooms, stems removed (for easier skewering)

Directions:

To prepare the marinade,  in a mixing bowl, combine first five ingredients. Stir in chicken and onion; allow to marinate for 30 minutes. Soak wooden skewers in water. On each skewer, thread a piece of chicken, onion, mushroom and another chicken piece. 

The original recipe gives these instructions for broiling: 

Place on a broiler rack. Broil 5 in. from the heat, turning and basting with marinade after 3 minutes. Continue broiling for another 3 minutes or until chicken is done. 

We grilled them on the barbecue instead.

Serve immediately. We served them with a spicy peanut sauce for dipping.


Stay tuned for the single-recipe finale: dessert. Hint: it's going to be adorable.

An Appetizer Party: Cold Appetizers

We closed 2010 with a party at my parents' house. We spent much of December 30th and 31st planning and preparing a suite of appetizers to serve in lieu of a sit-down dinner. Following is an account of what we decided on, how we prepared it, and most importantly: how it looked.

Shrimp Cocktail

Ingredients: 

1. Raw, frozen shrimp
2. Lemon
3. Sea Salt/Kosher Salt
4. Ketchup
5. Horseradish
6. Worcestershire Sauce
7. Sugar
8. Tobasco

Directions: 

Thaw shrimp and toss in kosher salt. Bring a huge pot of water to a boil - if you forgot to let the shrimp sit in kosher salt, add some sea salt to the water. We squeezed a lemon in too. 

Drop the shrimp into the boiling water and watch carefully. It's done when it curls/turns pink/floats in the water (experience finds that they tend to be done 30 seconds before you're confident they're done). Drain the hot water, and rinse the shrimp in cold water to keep them from cooking any more. Shell the shrimp - you don't want to buy pre-shelled because all the flavour is in the shell - and then pop them in the fridge until ready to serve.

The cocktail sauce is prepared by combining ketchup, horseradish, worcestershire sauce, sugar, and a touch of tobasco to taste. For details, ask Dave.

Garnish with leaf lettuce and lemon wedges, and serve in a bowl over ice to keep them cool.

Oyster Roll

Ingredients: 

1. Two 8 oz.  packages of cream cheese
2. 1 clove of garlic, minced
3. 2 tsp finely minced onion
4. 1 Tbsp mayonnaise
5. 2 tsp worcestershire sauce
6. 2 packages of smoked oysters

Make sure the cream cheese is soft by leaving it out of the refrigerator for a few hours, then mix together all the ingredients but the oysters. Spread this mixture on a waxed paper-lined baking sheet to form a rectangle that's about 1/2 an inch thick.

Chill.

And put the baking sheet in the fridge until firm-ish (about an hour or so).

Prepare the oysters by draining them and patting them dry. Smush them a little as you arrange them on the cream cheese rectangle for even coverage, leaving a little bit of space at the edges.

Roll along the long edge of the rectangle (like a jelly roll), and then smooth the surface with a knife.

Garnish with parsley or tomatoes and baby spinach and then serve with crackers or baguette.

Tomato, Basil, and Bocconcini Skewers

Ingredients (for 40 skewers):

1. 40 Cherry tomatoes
2. Fresh basil
3. 40 "small" bocconcini balls
4. Olive oil (about 1/3 cup)
5. Salt (about 1.5 tsp)
6. Fresh ground pepper (about 2 tsp)
7. 2-3 cloves of garlic

Quick recipe: get a toothpick, skewer a tomato, a small piece of basil and a bocconcini ball. Repeat. 

For added yumminess, flavour the bocconcini in advance by soaking them in a seasoned oil. 

To make the oil, mince garlic and (about a tablespoon of) fresh basil. Add these to about 1/3 cup of olive oil with salt and pepper. Heat until quite warm, then cool. Dry 40-45 bocconcini balls (it's best to do a few extra in case of accidents or snacking), then put them in a ziploc bag with the cooled oil. Let them sit for a few hours in the fridge, and then execute the quick recipe outlined above. Leftover oil can be drizzled over the plated skewers. 

Prosciutto-Wrapped Asparagus

Ingredients:

1. A small wheel of Boursin cheese (garlic and herb flavour is delicious)
2. 40 medium-sized spears of asparagus
3. 20 slices of prosciutto
4. Zest from one lemon
5. Cracked black pepper

Break the tough ends off the asparagus spears. We also trimmed these rough edges with a knife for presentation purposes. Blanche the asparagus by submerging it in boiling water for about 2 minutes, and then drain it and rinse it in cold water to stop any further cooking. Pat dry and set aside. 

Prepare the prosciutto by spreading a thin layer of cheese on each slice and then cutting it in half (along its shorter dimension). Sprinkle cracked black pepper on the cheese, and then wrap the prosciutto around the middle of an asparagus spear. One slice of prosciutto should do two asparagus spears. 

Spinach Penne with Ricotta

This is mostly for you, Anna.

For mom and dad: admire the "Food" setting on my new camera.

Prep time: 0 minutes

Cook time: 11 minutes

Deliciousness to time ratio: ridiculously high

Official Ingredients

• 1/3 cup pine nuts
• 1 lb (450 g) spinach penne
• 1-1/2 lb (700 g) baby spinach, washed
• 2 tbsp olive oil 
• Kosher salt + freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1 cup ricotta cheese (preferably light)
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Liz Ingredients (modified for 1)

• A few handfuls of pine nuts (enough to garnish generously + snack later) 
• A little less than one serving of penne (I used whole wheat)
• 3-5 handfuls of baby spinach (pre washed in a tub, hello)
• About 1/2 a cup of ricotta cheese (light cheese is not worth it, this is a substitute for a cream sauce so just figure it's healthier than a cup of whipping cream and butter)
• Grated parmesan cheese to garnish (put down the parmesan powder, and get a decent block of parmesan. It lasts forever and it's a healthy snack)

Directions

1. Put some water on to boil for the penne
2. Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees
3. Do some dishes or surf the internet or something
4. When the water is boiling, add pasta
5. Put the pine nuts on a baking sheet (I used a 9" round cake pan, extra high rims minimize chances of spilling) and put the baking sheet in the oven
6. Stir pasta occasionally
7. Toss pine nuts occasionally
8. After about 8 minutes, remove the pine nuts from the oven. (If they look burnt or smell bad, take them out earlier next time.) 
9. When pasta is almost done, start adding handfuls of spinach to wilt (If you use white pasta, it might cook faster than the pine nuts)
10. Stir it around until nice and wilty, then drain
11. Put the pasta and spinach back in the pot and add ricotta
12. And oil, if you're listening to the original instructions
13. Season with salt and pepper (a lot)
14. Transfer to plate, garnish with pine nuts and parmesan
15. Serve and enjoy immediately
16. If you eat slowly while blogging, it will cool and be less delicious.

Yum.

Business Cards, Montreal

Often, when I'm running around accommodating fabulous lifestyle, I pick up business cards from the places I visit. I'm not sure why. I tend to remember the places that I like and look up phone numbers online if I need to make reservations, so I've never actually used one of the cards as a reference. I just can't throw them out, even though they're adding to a pretty serious clutter situation - they're glossy and designed with care, and it is nice to have something physical to take back from an experience.

Chez Ennio is hands-down my favourite restaurant in Montreal. I've been there so many times over the past three years, and the whole experience is like nothing else - I don't have wonderful Italian grandparents to cook me fabulous food. Ennio gave me this card when I showed up with a party of five on a busy Thursday night, and I managed to put my foot in my mouth by trying to explain that it wasn't usually too busy during the week. 

 L'Enchanteur is a lovely pub and restaurant up near the Jean Talon market. I went for brunch, which was very good, and not too expensive, but also not worth the hike. They serve their water in old wine bottles, which is very rustic chic of them. It was an excellent place to chat with friends for an hour or two.

Los Tios is on Crescent street, and is notable for its teensy tiny patio, awesome lunch menu, and delicious sangria. It's perfect for soft shell tacos and sangria on a hot summer day. Even though the terrace is tiny, it doesn't get as busy as the huge patios around it so I've never had trouble getting a seat outside in a small party.

Machiavelli is very conveniently right across the street from the Charlevoix metro station and next to a SAQ. The patio is in the back and has a lovely backyard feel. The food isn't cheap, but it's not terribly expensive either, and the kitchen only runs a few specials each night so what they serve is good. There are some basic pasta and meat staples for the picky eater, too. BYO wine makes it a very affordable nice dinner out.

Another Harebrained Scheme

I'm not a baker in even the loosest interpretation of the word. I've forgotten to put milk in cake mix and wondered why my batter is the consistency of fudge. That said, I do like a challenge and an opportunity to do something that people say is hard. (This approach didn't seem to apply to my undergraduate math classes. Calculus and algebra were not fun challenges).

One of my favourite blogs is CakeWrecks. I love looking at all the disaster cakes, but also enjoy the showstopping "sunday sweets" cakes that were done right. CakeWrecks has an annual affiliation with Threadless, the user-designed t-shirt store that made buying Christmas gifts for my brothers that much easier. The result: Threadcakes. The mission: render any Threadless t-shirt design in cake.

One of last year's winners.

Obviously, this is the sort of thing I could pull off, right?

I don't know if I'll ever do it, but if I do, this is the design I picked:

Threadless tee "No Repeats"

I'm picturing a square cake carved in half with fondant on top. I can add the darker details with food colouring paint, the highlights with a combination of icing and cane sugar for sparkle. The snowflake could be constructed by piping an icing that hardens on to waxed paper (even with a template underneath to trace) with a few stakes out the side to anchor it into the cake. No clue how I'd make little men though...

Baking Macarons

When I told Sam (who hails from Paris, the land of pastries) that I had a goal of baking macarons he was deeply impressed. These little meringue-based biscuits are notoriously difficult to make, not because they're complicated (only four ingredients!) but because there are so many things you can do wrong.

This evening, I made my third batch (with Sam's help), and I think they finally came out right. They have lovely puffy little feet, the bottoms aren't too dark, and the tops are smooth. There are a few little peaks on the tops, which is a result of the batter being so thick that it hardened into a skin before the piped circles smoothed out. This is unfortunate, but a thicker batter is so much easier to pipe into uniform circles, I almost don't care.

I followed the recipe on Bakerella all three times, with variable results. Lessons have been learned.

Macaron Best Practices (by Liz)

DON'T

- Misread the recipe and set your conventional oven to the convection oven temperature. They won't cook in the time the recipe says.

- Put the baking sheets too close to the heat source. Burnt sugar is stinky, and tastes gross.

DO
- Line the baking trays with parchment paper, for the love of God! There's nothing worse than scraping perfect macarons off a baking clay with a metal spatula. It was macaron carnage.
- Use your own ground almonds rather than almond flour, and sift the flour/sugar mixture. It makes a difference
- Taste-test liberally. You want to make sure your friends and family are getting something yummy. Seriously, do you call N=1 a decent sample size?
- Photograph the cookies. They're so pretty.

Niagara Falls (2008 trip)

Continuing my recollections of past trips to Niagara Falls ...

On this trip, made over the May long weekend in 2008, we spent our first two nights at the brand-new Stirling Inn. It was incredible. The decor was modern and attractive, but not overdone. The building is a refurbished factory. It doesn't look like much on the outside, but inside is awesome.

I didn't take any photos of the bathroom, which is tragic, because the bathroom was my favourite part of the suite. It had a normal-ish sink, toilet, vanity (kind of lousy lighting for makeup), but the SHOWER. It was as almost as big as the whole bathroom in my apartment, had several different shower heads for an all-over water massage, and doubled as a STEAM ROOM. There were jets whose only purpose was to fill the shower with steam. I may or may not have taken four showers in two days.

Stirling Inn, exterior. Ok, maybe that's self-evident...

Our room. The bathroom is on the right, fireplace up the step and to the left. The couch is that dark form in the distance. This room was so massive that the king size bed wasn't the focal point. 

The "Healthy Breakfast" that was delivered to our room at 8:30am. This was included in the rate of the room, and was really yummy. Mmmm, coffee. 

May 23, 2008

After a good sleep and a healthy breakfast, we ventured out into the city of Niagara Falls. We strolled around a little, enjoying some good weather and taking a few obligatory photos of the falls while we waited for the shuttle up to Niagara Glen where we planned to hike. 

Niagara Glen is a short drive from the crazy tourism of Niagara Falls the city. If you've any interest in geology, there is plenty to see. It was a short-ish, easy hike with lots of fun photo opportunities. Especially if your photographer boyfriend likes to make you pretend to lift rock ledges, give you the camera as he pretends to fall into the niagara river, etc..

Dave pretends to fall into the niagara river

What? Of course I hike in argyle. Here I enjoy the view and look irritated about being posed.

One of the nicest things about the glen hiking trails is that they're not nearly as popular as a lot of the other Niagara Falls tourist attractions. I really enjoyed the peaceful quiet of it. We were alone most of the hike, except for a few times when we crossed paths with other groups of people. 

That evening, we went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner and a magic show at Greg Frewin Theatre. Dinner was a plentiful, yummy, buffet but nothing to write home about. The show on the other hand, was pretty incredible. Greg Frewin is a fantastic showman, with a really exciting and novel collection of illusions. His show includes all the tigers, sequins, doves, and lovely magician's assistants one could ask for. The only unfortunate thing is that (possibly) because he's in a theatre in Niagara Falls rather than in Las Vegas, the show opened with a somewhat awkward "The guy you're about to see is actually a big deal. World class. Even though he's in Canada." video montage. I understand why they did it, but for me anyway, the quality of the show spoke for itself.

May 24, 2008

The next day, we packed up and bid adieu to the Stirling Inn. We drove from Niagara Falls to Niagara on the Lake on the beautiful Niagara Parkway. This is one of the only drives that I really enjoy. There are so many beautiful houses and wineries to admire. Coming from further north at this time of year, it's also nice to just be surrounded by green things.

Niagara on the Lake is a complete change of pace from Niagara Falls. It's still extremely touristy and overpriced, but the focus shifts from wax museums to wine, food, and theatre. We checked in at Pillar and Post somewhat early, but they accommodated us. We, unfortunately, didn't have the foresight to take many location photos. Oops. This one of the Pillar and Post is from niagaraviews.com:

We had dinner plans at Peller Estates winery, but needed a light lunch to get us through. We wandered around a bit before stopping at Zees to eat on their gorgeous patio right across from the Shaw theatre. The food at Zees was wonderful, I had the best Macaroni and cheese of my life, and Dave had memorable crab cakes. We also had a half-litre of Inniskillin's pinot grigio, which has since become one of my favourite white wines.

After lunch, we took a walk around Niagara on the Lake, which can kill about an hour if you have a leisurely stride and maybe two if you like ducking in to look at the shops. The shopping definitely caters to the older crowd - I wouldn't have seriously shopped for myself in any of the clothing stores. That said, there were some cute jewelry and craft stores that were fun to look at. They have a Cows ice cream and T-shirt store - excellent ice cream, seriously corny t-shirts.

Pillar and Post provides a complimentary shuttle for guests around Niagara on the Lake. Peller Estates was a bit out of town, so we hopped in a van and got there well in advance of our reservation. This is the dining room, brought to you by tourismniagara.com:

Outside the windows on the left, there's a terrace that overlooks the vineyard. It was a little too chilly on this trip, but someday I hope to have a less extravagant dinner on the patio. I love eating outdoors.

The Peller Estates dining room has a couple of options: you can eat like at a regular restaurant and order each plate and wine individually, or you can do a tasting menu. They have three tasting menus: the red, white, and signature menus. The red and white are each five courses, the signature is seven. Each course comes with a not-quite-full-but-generous glass of paired wine. We did the signature menu over three hours. It is expensive, but you can consider it your food and your entertainment for the evening.

Dave's tip: finish your wine quickly, and if they aren't too busy you'll get a refill.
Liz's tip: take your time with the wine, or else you'll end up drunk. That said, I don't think they come to bring the next course until you've finished the food and the wine. If you particularly like any of the wines, you can tell your waiter and buy a bottle. They bring you the bottle at the end of the meal and just add the cost to your bill. Caution: some of the glasses of wine come from extremely expensive bottles.

Each course is small, and exotic. If there's something you don't like (Liz: foie gras, Dave: hen's egg poached in rosé, still runny yolk), you don't have to eat too many bites of it. The most amazing thing was the blue cheese saturated with ice wine. It takes two years to completely saturate a wheel of cheese. The coolest thing was the soup course where we were presented with shallow soup bowls, empty save a scallop. We each had two servers at this point, one of whom poured the soup in around the scallop (a substitution from the menu), the other drizzled cream over the soup. They did this at exactly the same time for both of us.

It was very fancy, and by the end of it we were both quite tipsy, but not totally drunk. We'd eaten a huge array of things, and definitely weren't hungry, but we weren't so stuffed we could hardly move either. When we were done, our waiter arranged the shuttle, and we were chauffeured back to Pillar and Post. After a tasting menu, you should not plan to be able to drive.

Pillar and Post does a turn-down of your bed with a lovely rose while you're out for the evening. This might prompt you to take a series of ridiculous pictures, only some of which are not blurry:

This pictures have been post-processed more extensively than usual. You know, to up the class factor. 

Shortly thereafter, we passed out. The end.

Epilogue, May 25, 2008
On our last day, we stopped at Inniskillin and bought the pinot grigio we'd enjoyed at Zees. I enjoyed it again in Montreal later.

Delicious Hamburgers

As some of you may know, I'm something of a burger connoisseur. I make it my mission to find excellent hamburgers, and classify establishments by the quality of their hamburgers. This weekend, Dave and I ventured to create our own burgers, and I have to say it was a wild success. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of medium (or regular) ground beef (NOT lean or extra lean, these meats aren't juicy)
• 1 shallot
• 2 cloves of garlic
• fresh ground pepper (or crushed peppercorns)
• salt
• about 2 tsps of Worcestershire sauce
  

Directions:

• Put the meat into a largeish bowl. There should be plenty of extra space in the bowl.
• Chop the shallot VERY finely
• If you don't have a garlic press, repeat for the garlic. Otherwise, put the garlic through the press into the bowl with the meat
• Toss the chopped shallot in too (it might be easier to do this gradually)
• Fun part: use your hands to knead the shallot and garlic into the meat
• Season generously with pepper and salt
• Knead that in too
• Add Worcestershire sauce
• Keep kneading until it's all blended
• Form the meat into tight patties (it's very important that they're not coming apart at the edges)
• Grill to taste
• Enjoy!
  

Snack Time!

To make these yummy and healthy snacks you need the following:

- sundried tomatoes
- cucumber
- baguette (healthy version: whole wheat)
- cream cheese (healthy version: low fat)

Slice the sundried tomatoes into little pieces and blend them into cream cheese. Spread the cream cheese on slices of baguette and place a slice of cucumber on top. Delicious!