Showing posts with label Blog Events. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog Events. Show all posts
Saturday, 23 June 2012
Last year I was, unfortunately, away for Taste of Edmonton, a foodie event that brings together restaurants, food businesses and foodies from all over the city. This year, Taste of Edmonton is being held from July 19th - 28, 2012, and is coinciding with Race Week Edmonton, and Edmonton's Capital Ex. So this is my first year of experiencing ToE!
So as you can see, Edmonton is the place to be this July and I, for one, have no intention of missing it, and was very pleased when I received an invitation to their media launch. I do adore the flexibility of my day, and have always aspired to be a lady that lunches (or gets invited to lunches, anyway) and it was great to head to the Shoctor Lobby at the Citadel Theatre, and bump into many familiar faces, including Lillian from Beyond Umami and Diane from Argenplath.
I wasn't expecting there to be actual food at the launch, as I assumed it was going to be a series of presentations, and perhaps, some tasters. So it was a pleasant surprise when there indeed was some great food on offer, and even better, these were all the new restaurants on the block.
Monday, 18 June 2012
Me (after listening to Aditi yammering away for what felt like the whole day!): Aditi, don't you ever stop talking?
Aditi (looking at me quite seriously): Mommy, I am just making sure my tongue works.
Or, this one.
Me: Aditi why don't you like spice?
Aditi: Mum, I like spice when you put it in desserts.
Sigh!!!
Sigh!!!
Monday, 14 May 2012
You know what they say about blog posts. None for ages, then two come along at once :)
I am very honoured to be part of JC100, a celebration for the esteemed Julia Child's 100th birthday on August 15th, 2012. As part of the celebration, Julia's publishers Alfred A. Knopf is spearheading a a national campaign involving restaurants, chefs, bookstores, and bloggers, all celebrating Julia and her legacy. The aim is to raise one million voices in tribute to Julia, and I am absolutely chuffed to be adding my voice to this beautiful symphony of great food.
Monday, 30 January 2012
Here is the round up for the spicy hot Indian dishes you came up with and its a brilliant one with dishes from all over the country, all heated up with those wonderful spicy chillies. After the round up, don't forget to head over to Lyndsey's blog on the 1st to check out the theme for February. I personally can't wait to see what it is!!
To the round-up we go!
Sunday, 25 December 2011
Merry Christmas and Season's Greetings to my lovely readers and friends. Its been quite a year, and I hope that you have had a blessed Christmas with your own family and friends. Every day that I blog, I count my blessings to know you all, and you make such a difference to me. I thank you all for being in my life!
A quick post today. I've been a bit 'alasi' (lazy) over the Christmas period, and as is usual have been neglecting my blogging. I blame a combination of stress, followed by lassitude for this. Its not that I haven't been cooking, its just that I have been making food to take to potluck dinners, and this means that I am always making my signature dishes like the butter chicken, so there is no incentive to blog.
That said, I did break out a bit and made these delicious Jamie Oliver sprouts for the Christmas dinner we were attending with friends. They, along with maple glazed carrots and David Lebovitz's butterscotch pecan ice cream were my contribution to the evening. So I sit here, on Christmas day, and I am pleasantly stuffed full of Christmas dinner, roast turkey and the works, plus a totally divine sticky toffee pudding for dessert.
That said, I did break out a bit and made these delicious Jamie Oliver sprouts for the Christmas dinner we were attending with friends. They, along with maple glazed carrots and David Lebovitz's butterscotch pecan ice cream were my contribution to the evening. So I sit here, on Christmas day, and I am pleasantly stuffed full of Christmas dinner, roast turkey and the works, plus a totally divine sticky toffee pudding for dessert.
Friday, 2 December 2011
Mushrooms in particular were a favourite of all of us. My cousins and I would head out first thing into the woods, and scope out the best place for each of us to search. The best place to find them was usually under a big tree and under slightly (icky) mouldy leaf falls. We each were armed with a stick and a basket or two, and the divvy up the woods. I usually took the top part where the most rain fell and scurry along the edges, turning over leaves and wet greenery, in search of that elusive fungi. When I found a patch, I scrabbled along slippery leaves, and gently cut the mushrooms off, chucking them in my basket. We had friendly competitions as to who would bring back the most mushrooms, contests that my cousin Blaise would almost always win... just because he had no conception of not getting grubby, and turned over every bit of muddy patched and mucky leaves, where the best mushrooms hid. We girls were a bit more decorous :-)
Back at Mai's we piled the mushrooms into the big stone sink, and either my mum or my aunt would get to work, sorting through and cleaning up the edible ones. Pretty much 99% of the mushrooms we picked were edible, but occasionally we would come across an unidentified one that would be chucked away (these were the days before internet, we couldn't handily look up edible mushrooms, hehe) Once the mushrooms were cleaned and sorted, depending on the size of the haul, some would be passed on to the neighbours and the rest would be very simply cooked in the 'tel - piaow' (oil - onion) style of cooking. This style is probably the simplest of Indian cooking. But don't be taken in by the simplicity, the flavours packed a real punch, with the earthiness of the mushrooms and their unique taste showcased beautifully in the delicately spiced dish. We were served the dish at lunchtime with a simple congee and homemade lime or mango pickle. This, for me, is comfort food at its best, and I miss those easy, carefree and happy days with my little cousins and family.
Saturday, 29 October 2011
Even the most hands on mum needs a break sometimes. And much as I love my li'l girl, I do need a break after spending practically most days (and some nights) with her. So when I got a chance to head to the Rocky Mountain Wine and Food Festival, wild horses couldn't stop me from making sure I attended.
My date for the evening was the polished and debonair Marlow Moo from Mr Moo's Adventures and his human sidekick. Armed with our super cool plates and our handbooks, we hustled our way into the Shaw Conference Centre where the event was being held. The Rocky Mountain Wine and Food festival is one of the premier food and drink festivals in Canada, and takes place in Banff, Edmonton and Calgary. Showcasing some of the best in food and drink, both local and international, it is truly a feast in every sense of the word.
Of course, a food event is no event if you don't bump into other Edmonton foodies. We waved hello to Marianne from Loosen Your Belt, Rita from Kerstin's Chocolates and Maki from In My Element. Maki has some gorgeous photos of the festival on her site, well worth a drool.
Monday, 24 October 2011
This is a strictly for-adults-only dessert! Deliciously decadent orange infused dark chocolate combines with whipped egg yolks and whipped cream to make this beautiful mousse. It is so unbelievably moreish that it disappeared before it even had a chance to set.
I came about this divine concoction from Jacques Pépin's collection of recipes. To celebrate the launch of his new book 'Essential Pépin', some of us bloggers were contacted to see if we would be interested in trying out his recipes. Was I ever interested? My interest levels went sky high once I caught a glimpse of his stunning looking mousse. Jacques uses cognac and plain dark chocolate in his recipe, but I decided to play about with the flavours and replace the plain chocolate with this gorgeous orange infused one from Ten Thousand Villages. It's also fair trade, so soothes my conscience along with my tastebuds.
And after I made this mousse, well, all I can say is Raymond Blanc (my usual French chef crush) you have serious competition from Monsieur Pépin!
I came about this divine concoction from Jacques Pépin's collection of recipes. To celebrate the launch of his new book 'Essential Pépin', some of us bloggers were contacted to see if we would be interested in trying out his recipes. Was I ever interested? My interest levels went sky high once I caught a glimpse of his stunning looking mousse. Jacques uses cognac and plain dark chocolate in his recipe, but I decided to play about with the flavours and replace the plain chocolate with this gorgeous orange infused one from Ten Thousand Villages. It's also fair trade, so soothes my conscience along with my tastebuds.
And after I made this mousse, well, all I can say is Raymond Blanc (my usual French chef crush) you have serious competition from Monsieur Pépin!
Saturday, 15 October 2011
When Choclette announced that this month's special ingredient for We Should Cocoa is Chilli, I don't think she quite meant for me to take it so literally :-)
But what can I say? The Mexicans love chocolate in their chili and so do we. I know the combination of chocolate in the savoury chili can seem a bit unusual, but its utterly delicious, and actually fairly common too. I first saw the idea for a chunky chili with dark chocolate in an old issue of Delicious Magazine. It was a while ago though, and for the life of me, I cannot recall whose recipe it was. I made a vegetarian version of it a few times, and its always gone down really well, particularly with Aditi. Normally I just use dark chocolate for this recipe, but this time I decided to be a little different. I used this gorgeous Lindt dark chocolate with chilli, which is absolutely divine by itself, but adds a further layer of delicious darkness to this chili.
Sunday, 25 September 2011
Its birthday month. Both for We Should Cocoa, who turn one, and me who turns... errr, lets not get into that!
The challenge for this month was to come up with a birthday cake. For me, nothing screams birthday as much as a chocolate cake. As it turns out, I had the perfect cake recipe practically handed to me. My neighbour Vee, she of the Lemon Courgette Cookies fame had also passed on a recipe for a chocolate zucchini loaf. I've been waiting to try it out for a while, but like most good intentions, this one got side tracked by other things. You know what they say, the road to a diet is paved with chocolate cake recipes :-)
I finally got the chance to make it today, and hopefully in time for We Should Cocoa. I was a bit worried, as it was the first time I was making the recipe, so I scaled it down a bit. The zucchini came from my garden, as usual (sigh!) and I changed around a few bits as bobs (also as per usual for me :-))
This cake was just gorgeous! I used a good Lindt dark chocolate instead of chocolate chips, and the zucchini just kept it so moist, it was unbelievable. Instead of just serving it plain, I decided to then go all out and made a delicious dark chocolate cream sauce to go with it. After all its a birthday celebration!
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
This project was interesting for me, because I never really thought about how I feel about my blog posts. I mean, I have posted on blogging before, but this gave me a chance to go back and look at the posts, and I was quite surprised to find the answers to these questions were not as easy as I had expected.
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Dom from Belleau Kitchen challenged us to go back to basics for this month's Random Recipes Challenge, and pick a book out of our cookbook collections. Lest I cheat, I got my daughter to do the picking and she picked out this book here. Dr Oetkar's 'German Baking Today - The Original'. My friend Maz had got it for me from Germany, and I remember absolutely drooling through the recipes, but then, as is usual, the book got shelved, never to be used. Dom's hit on a winner here, as I have managed to cook more for this event from my long neglected cookbooks, than I have for a while.
I flipped open the book, and it landed on a page with two recipes. Amarettini and Wasp Nests. I figured at this point, since Aditi had picked out the book, it would only be fair to make a recipe that she could eat (the Amarettini, as the name suggests, has Amaretto in it) So Wasp Nests it was, or to make them sound more palatable, little meringue biscuits with chopped almonds and grated chocolate, that look very much like the nests of those despised insects! Eerily so!
Names aside, these little bites were stunningly good. Crisp meringue with their chewy insides, crunchy almonds, and every so often, a slight hint of bitterness from the dark chocolate to cut through the sweetness. I can easily see these being a real hit at a tea party.
I am posting the recipe, as I slashed it by a third and added a few bits and bobs to the original. The original recipe made sixty nests, and I didn't think it was prudent to have that much sugar floating around in the vicinity of a three year old :-) And good thing too, as they all disappeared within moments of cooling down. Another lesson for next time, spirit some away into a tin before letting little bees get a hold of them!
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
As you've probably already noticed, the blog has lost a lot of its pictures... I am slowly working to get them back out on here, but its a big task. I never actually realised how many pictures and recipes I had on this blog until I had to go through them to upload on Flickr and then repost. I took the opportunity to rewrite some recipes, and revisit the posts, so I could make them better. So I guess, in a way, there was a silver lining to this blogger induced black cloud. The pictures are not all up yet, but will be by the end of this week, and we can get back to business as usual :-)
But that said, I will also be taking a short blogging break for two or three weeks. One of my best friends is visiting me from Germany, and we have decided to head out into the Rockies for a road trip! I cannot wait... in my opinion there is nowehere as gorgeous as the Rocky Mountains in the summer, and the Jasper-Banff Highway, also called the Icefields Parkway, is simply paradise on earth (well, if you exclude all thr tourists, that is :-)) So after this one, my next post is likely to be at the beginning of August, unless of course I get inspired at a campsite or two or three!
Thursday, 23 June 2011
'A shortcake should be like a biscuit' said a formidable lady from Terrace to my MIL during their strawberry socials (I love that idea, anyone up for a strawberry social in Edmonton?).
Who am I to disagree? This wonderful shortcake recipe was passed on to me by my MIL, who told me that its an old recipe, that has been handed down quite a bit. Having gobbled up her shortcakes, I can see why this is a trusted recipe. Its Delicious, with that capital D fully justified.
Monday, 13 June 2011
OK, OK, I know. This is practically Coronation chicken salad. But it's not. It has a twist. My twist. The curry powder is homemade, as is the mayonnaise (oooh, fancy). And I made it with a mix of sweet potatoes and new potatoes too.
Therefore I am entitled to claim the recipe... well not exactly, but I did make without referring to any other recipe. However, after I made the salad, I looked online out of curiosity, only to find tons of recipes that were similar. Dagnabit!! Well, I say, its not exactly the same, so I think I may be safe in posting this one up.
Monday, 16 May 2011
When I think of Nigella, the last thing I think is salads. Indulgent, rich, dark desserts, maybe, but salads? All this was about to change when Dom at Belleau Kitchen who is hosting this month's Forever Nigella challenge announced that the theme was Salad Days.
Suddenly I was looking at Nigella in a completely different way. But Nigella being, well, Nigella, there were some pretty decadent looking salads in her recipes. I borrowed Kitchen, Feast and Nigella Bites from the library, and after much poring over the recipes, finally settled on this gorgeous looking Panzanella from 'Kitchen'. OK, I admit it, the name hooked me at first. As Nigella herself says in the introduction to this salad, how can you resist such a pretty, princessy name like Panzanella? Not me, of course, so I set my heart on making it.
First off, I am well known for making easy things difficult, right? Yes, that's true. So I decided I was going to make my own bread for the recipe. I looked up Pugliese bread, and ruled out making it almost immediately, as most of the recipes had it made with either a Thermomix or a Kitchenaid. Not having either, I had to fall back on my basic bread recipe. Instead of baking it in a loaf tin, I shaped it into a round loaf, then baked it up.
It was gorgeous! All yummy and bready and soft crusty. The perfect loaf to tear up and make a salad with, yes!
I made a few adjustments to the original recipe, and so am posting it up. Nothing major, just a few tweaks to quantities and a couple of additions and substitutions. The original recipe can be found in her wonderful book 'Kitchen' and I think this is one book I am going to have to buy, as I have already found a ton of recipes I want to make from it.
And the most important question - the taste? I honestly cannot describe it without going into Nigellaesque raptures. It was quite tangy, and the bread soaked up the dressing beautifully. It was hearty and rustic, but with the complexity of a much more sophisticated dish. It was so easy to prepare, yet looked like I'd spent hours on it. And Nigella suggests that its better to make it ahead, so it even passes the 'can-I-make-it-in-advance-because-I-am-a-lazy-sod?' test.
A princess among salads, indeed!
Recipe:
Adapted from Nigella Lawson's 'Kitchen'
(Printable Recipe)
3/4 loaf bread, cubed or torn into smallish chunks
1 big bunch basil
1 small red onion, diced fine
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 small clove garlic, grated
2 tsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp sugar
2+1 large ripe tomatoes
100ml extra virgin olive oil
Handful pine nuts (opt)
Method:
In a small bowl, whisk together the diced onion, vinegars, garlic, salt and sugar.
Place 2 tomatoes in a heatproof bowl, and pour over some boiling water. Leave for 3 minutes, then carefully take out the tomatoes, peel and deseed, then crush coarsely.
Add the crushed tomatoes to the whisked vinaigrette mixture. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Put the dressing in the fridge, if possible, overnight, as the flavours really come together.
To assemble the salad, place the bread into a large bowl, and pour over the dressing, and the 100ml olive oil. Mix together well.
Thinly slice the remaining tomato into wedges, and add to the salad, along with a bunch of roughly chopped basil leaves. Stir again.
Serve with a sprinkle of pine nuts, if you want.
Note: Nigella suggests making the whole salad, except the basil, and putting the fridge overnight. But I didn't want a super damp salad, so I only put the dressing in the fridge overnight, and assembled the salad the next day. Feel free to do whatever you want here.
This salad is heading over to Sarah at Maison Cupcake's Forever Nigella Blogging Event, hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen
Saturday, 14 May 2011
One of the reasons that I joined the Daring Kitchen was so I would be pushed out of my comfort zone, and cook dishes that are not on my radar. This gumbo is an excellent example. Previously the only time I had heard of this dish was in the song 'Jambalaya' by Hank Williams :-) Y'know?
'Jambalaya and a crawfish pie
And filè gumbo,
'Cause tonight
I'm gonna see by ma cher amio
Pick guitar,
Fill fruit jar
And be gayo
Son of a gun,
We'll have big fun
On the bayou'
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Dom over at Belleau Kitchen announced that this month's Random Recipe Challenge would be 'Just Desserts'. Yesss! I do desserts. In fact, I actively seek them out and do them. Kay, not so much, as he's watching his diet, but me and Aditi, we indulge. Luckily we are home most days so all signs of our dessertly activity can be hidden well before poor Kay gets back home.
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