Truffle Mutt

Blogging By Mail is Here!

My package for the Blogging By Mail event came on Thursday night.  This unique event was created by Nic at Baking Sheet and what a fantastic idea it was.  We're constantly sharing experiences, pictures and ideas but this is a great way to do it hands-on, up-close-and-personal, etc, etc. 

I was more excited than a little kid at Christmas.  Seriously, possibly sadly, I was.  On the to my door from the mailbox I was shaking and sniffing in a mad attempt to guess the contents.  Just the week before I was surprised by a similar package from Nic herself.  She had sent all the participants a thank you note along with a few treats to sweeten the deal.  Wow!  What a great hostess and what great white chocolate blondies.   

When I spotted the second package in my mailbox I think I actually squeaked.  I didn't even shut the door as I went for the scissors and began cutting away.   The package contained a neatly wrapped stack of ginger, cranberry and walnut chocolate bark and a bundle of homemade granola.  Totally ignoring the voice inside my head telling me not to spoil my appetite before dinner I tucked into my goodies.  Realizing that I still needed to take pictures, and I'm thankful that this thought occurred to me in time, I put it away until later, but not too much later. 

My package came from Suzie in New York and I personally want to thank her for participating in this exchange.  Hopefully I'll be able to beg and plead to get the recipes out of her.  Her recommendations for the granola were yogurt and she mentioned it had to be full fat (well of course!)   :o)  and fruit compote.  The granola is almost gone though and I've only eaten it on ice cream.  That might seem weird, but don't knock it.

Thanks to Nic, Suzie and Sam at Becks & Bosh who got my package last week.

Not for Take Out

I've read my copy of China from cover-to-cover twice since I bought it.  The recipes are well written and it's loaded with mouth-watering pictures, the only downside I see is that Jason despises Chinese food.  How you ask can someone hate an entire cuisine?  Answer: They can't really, but they try.  Really hard.  The result of his stubbornness surrounding Chinese food has been that I haven't been able to make anything from it.  Possibly it wasn't the best choice of cookbook.  Too bad for him.

My chance came a few weeks ago when he was out of town.  Yeah!  I promptly invited a girlfriend over and went in search of our would be dinner.

Leafing through the book, the picture of the Beef with Peppers and Black Bean Sauce made my decision for me.  The picture is scrumptious - that is was the only thing that I had all the ingredients for had nothing to do with it.  Well, it didn't.

There are quite a few ingredients in this recipe, but it goes together easily.  The flavor of the black bean sauce is to die for, although my take was a bit too salty.  This might have been completely my fault, I'm not sure if I added too much soy sauce or something.  I'll pay more attention to that next time. I served it with a simple fried rice.  Spectacular.

BBQ Crazy

One of my favorite things to make on the barbecue is foiled vegetables.  They remind me of summer nights eating on the porch, surrounded by the smell of smoldering mosquito coils and the rhythmic sound of croaking frogs.  I however, no longer have a porch, mosquitoes (thankfully) or croaking frogs around, but I still have a barbecue, and most of the time a roll of foil.

I have made several changes to this over time, jazzing up the simple oil tossed potatoes, onions and mushrooms.  It might be a little more work than before, but it's more then worth the effort.  First off, combine any vegetables that will cook in a similar length of time like baby potatoes, bell pepper, onion, mushrooms, zucchini and broccoli.  Chop the veggies into chunky pieces of a similar size and combine in a bowl.  Add several cloves of chopped garlic, fresh chopped basil, chopped parsley, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and a drizzle of olive oil.  Lastly add my secret ingredient... shh... a jar of bruschetta.  Give everything a quick stir and then add the mixture to a foil grilling bag or a handmade foil package and pop on the barbecue for about 30 minutes, until veggies are tender.    

When you peel open the bag you'll be greeted by a rush of steam and the sweet smell of summer roasted vegetables.  Hopefully you can eat them without the company of too many mosquitoes.       

Naked Manicotti

Don't worry it wasn't naked all night, just for this picture.  Shortly after it was decently covered up with a heavenly Boursin cheese sauce.

A few weeks ago when I made this the weather was yucky and I was having a craving for winter food.  This manicotti with it's rich meat filling and creamy cheese sauce seemed just the cure.  I didn't follow a recipe exactly it was more a mishmash of recipes.  I read a manicotti recipe and a lasagna recipe and I made a combination of the two.  For the filling I used a mixture of ground beef and pork, but to add a meatier flavor I also added 80g of each chopped proscuttio, genoa salami and hot capicola ham.

The tomato meat sauce was packed into the manicotti and then topped with a Boursin herbed white cream sauce and baked until lightly browned. 

It turned out fantastic.  It's too bad I don't know how I made it.  Bummer.

Spice It Up

Take spicy Mexican stewed chicken, green chili sauce and melted cheese and pile it high on crispy corn tortillas and you get some pretty yummy layered enchiladas. 

For sometime I've wanted to try making my own salsa.  It's not that it's a difficult thing to make, but for whatever reason it's taken me a long time to get around to making it.  Looking in my fridge I spotted the deep red tomatoes and they were just screaming salsa, well whispering anyway, so I gave it a go.  I roasted the tomatoes and onion, added garlic, salt and canned chipotles and gave it a whirr in the processor.  The salsa led to the guacamole, which in turn led to a full out Mexican night including layered chicken enchiladas. 

I layered the enchiladas with a tangy shredded chicken red chile sauce and a rich creamy spinach and green chile sauce.  Most enchiladas I've had are either made of green or red sauces, not usually of both.  But red chile sauce packs quite a bite and I wanted to round it out with a creamier sauce and of course cheese!      

That's the Ticket

It all started with the ticket I got last weekend for driving an unregistered vehicle.  In Alberta this translates into a $230 ticket and a tow, although I did manage to avoid the later.  No, it wasn't intentional, I honestly had no idea that my registration had expired and I seem to have missed getting that all important reminder notice in the mail.  I know, I know it's my own responsibility to look after these things.  I've already had that lecture from Mr. Policeman. 

When I went to pay my ticket and renew my registration the other day I had a difficult time parting with that much coin for a stupid ticket.  To ease my suffering I decided I needed to go out for dinner, so I could try convincing myself that I'd spent hundreds of dollars on good food instead.  And so that's how I ended up on the doorstep of Divino's Wine & Cheese Bistro on Stephen Avenue with Lisa, who had kindly agreed to help me consume my sorrows. 

When we walked in the door we were greeted by the smell of the wood burning grill.  The sweet smokiness wrapped itself warmly around us and playfully teased our appetites.  The decor in the restaurant was trendy without being uncomfortable or pretentious and the few added touches, like the sea salt and pepper grinders at the table were perfect.  We were seated across from the open kitchen, so we could see the goings on, the different foods and interesting presentations.  Maybe not everyone's ideal spot, but we enjoyed it. 

The service was exceptional.  Our waiter was admirably patient with my questions and was free with his opinions and recommendations, which was helpful.  When we eventually made it through the decision making process, we ordered the Celeriac and Black Truffle Reversed Ravioli with butter poached lobster and seared sea scallop as a starter.  For dinner I ordered the Lamb Confit Melt with fig jam, braised leeks, and Cambozola and Lisa ordered the Bacon Roasted Chicken Breast Sandwich with aged cheddar, frisee, and heirloom tomato relish.

The Reversed Ravioli was a seared sea scallop and poached lobster served over a ravioli pasta lined with a thin, tender round of celeriac and drizzled with truffle infused oil.  The various elements blended well in this dish.  The scallop was perfectly done and while the lobster was slightly tough it was fresh and sweet tasting.  The celeriac was a pronounced flavor, but it was lost in the presentation as it was too similar in both color and texture to the pasta.  Still the appetizer was impressive and I would order it again despite the $19 price tag.

My lamb melt was served with a mixed spring greens salad with mustard vinaigrette.  The lamb was melt-in-your-mouth tender and the bold taste was the perfect match for the aggressive Cambozola.  The sandwich was messy with the sauce dripping everywhere, but in fairness, I was warned of that.  My only complaint would be that the fig jam and the braised leeks were too muted.  Still I'd recommend the sandwich to anyone who like lamb. 

Overall the experience was a great one.  We enjoyed the atmosphere, the service, the buzz of the kitchen and quite importantly, the food.  There were a number of things that looked interesting on the menu, and since I couldn't have them all I'm sure I'll be heading back. 

113 - 8th Avenue SW
Calgary, Alberta
Reservations Phone: 403.410.5555
 
The picture is courtesy of the Divino website
  

Sweet Sorrow

This months SHF #10, cleverly themed "Oh Honey you shouldn't have", is being hosted by Nic of Baking Sheet. 

Truthfully, I wasn't feeling at all inspired, adventurous or motivated this evening when I attempted my entry, and so it fell far short of what it could (and should) have been.  When I finally decided at 7:00 pm that I wasn't going to call in sick for the event I went in search of something that wasn't going to require a lot of slaving away in the kitchen, because I really wasn't up to it.  Turns out after a bit of surfing, that I found what I was looking for in this recipe for honey cake on the Food TV website.

In the cake I used a blueberry honey that I'd picked up at the farmers market awhile back.  I thought the subtle hint of blueberry would compliment the spices in the cake nicely.  What happened in actuality, was a batter that turned a really weird and unappetizing color of brownish purple.  I also didn't have any honey wine, so I used ice wine instead.  I'm not sure what honey wine tastes like, so I don't know how great of a substitution that was. 

When the cake came out of the oven it ended up not looking that bad, so I glazed it with plain honey & a dash of wine.  When I cut into it I was even happier to see that it had lost some of it's terrible coloring.  It's appearance was surprisingly normal.  Things were beginning to look up for my honey cake, so I let it cool off.   

Since I was almost done the write up it was time test it out, and things went really downhill from there.  The cake was moist and light, but tasted like an incredibly boring spice cake.  There was no hint of the flavor from the honey or the wine, and the faint spice notes were the only discernible flavors.  It wasn't bad exactly, but it was a disappointment for sure. 

I learned my lesson.  When I'm not in the mood to cook, I shouldn't step into the kitchen.  Honey, I really shouldn't have!

Manhattan Comes to Calgary

Why is it that I rarely see Manhattan style clam chowder in my part of the world?  The logical conclusion is that I don't live in, or even remotely close to Manhattan.  But then tell me why there's no shortage of the New England variety.  Well?

Instead of trying to figure out what it is Calgarians have against Manhattan clam chowder I decided to take matters into my own hands and make it myself.  All I needed was a little help in constructing it.  Initially, I was a bit worried about finding a recipe.  Was it going to turn out that Manhattan was in fact the only place to get Manhattan clam chowder, or was I going to discover that the recipe is a closely guarded secret that will never escape it's regional clutches, or maybe... oh never mind.  Luckily, none of these was the case and my worries were abated when I found this well rated recipe on epicurious. 

The intro says to treat yourself to fresh clams, but having no luck finding them at the Fish Market I went ahead with canned.  Yes, I know it's probably better with fresh ones, but I'm from Calgary, so understand that I probably don't know what fresh tastes like anyway. 

The recipe was super-duper easy.  Saute the veggies, add the potato, clam juice and tomatoes, and finally add the clams.  Seriously easy.  The only change I made was to use oven roasted tomatoes that I had made earlier in place of some of the canned ones.  After tasting the finished product I would highly recommend doing it this way, it's worth the extra effort.  The rich roasted flavor blended exceptionally well with the smoky bacon for a wonderfully out-of-town Manhattan style clam chowder. 

Who are you calling a Jerk?

Shrimp.  That's who!  Sure we've all heard of jerk chicken and pork, but who's to say shrimp can't be jerks too?  I'm sure they forget to phone, arrive a half hour late and leave their dirty dishes in the sink just like everyone else.

In truth, that wasn't my exact reasoning when deciding to make jerk shrimp.  I just really wanted shrimp, and as I was paging through my new $5 bargain copy of Entertain by Ed Baines that I got at Chapters the other day, I spotted a jerk chicken recipe and behold jerk shrimp!  As an added bonus, I'd finally uncovered the wooden skewers that I'd been searching for earlier in the week -yes, I actually lost something in my itsy bitsy kitchen- making the grilling process a little easier to manage.

The mix was easy to prepare, however the recipe did present me with one problem.  No celery salt.  My spice collection, as I was unpleasantly surprised, is bereft of this finely ground seed which probably altered the taste of the recipe substantially.  Still, with the light Parmesan cream pasta and a hearty squish or two of fresh lemon I found the blend of flavors worthy of another attempt.  I'll try it again when I have all the ingredients!  b

Berry Good

Mmm...  Strawberries dipped in sour cream and brown sugar. 

**sigh**