that canadian girl

Mr. O is at it again! This time, he’s run off to Italy to learn to cook from the best!

For once, I’ve managed to catch a TV series right at the beginning, and I highly recommend it to food addicts. Jamie and the infamous hippie van visited Sicily’s Palermo for a first cultural shock.

If you’re tempted to grill fish Sicilian-style, the recipes can be found here. My guess is that they’ll add the recipes each week after the show, so keep an eye on that link!

Channel 4, Wednesdays at 8:30pm

I shouldn’t cross post everything from my food blog to here, but this summer favourite is highly recommended! Make sure you choose nice ripe avocados, they’ll be soooo much tastier!

This is one of the best summer recipes I’ve seen in a long time, posted by Tequila Mockingbird. I’ve “cleaned up” the recipe format but essentially, it’s still her version.

Grilled avocado with balsamic vinegar

Ingredients:

• 4 ripe avocados
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Really good balsamic vinegar *
• Parmesan cheese **

* If you invest in really good balsamic vinegar, your life will be a much better and happier place. really. really high quality balsamic vinegar is a transformative elixir that makes everything from strawberries to lettuce to chicken to, well, avocados, taste like ambrosia from on high.

** Stop using that crap in the plastic jar. it’s not parmesan cheese. it’s crap. buy a hunk of quality cheese and a grater. it’s not quite the elixir that quality balsamic is, but it’s damn near close.

Method:

• Peel, pit and halve the avocados
• Brush them with a little extra-virgin olive oil and some of the balsamic vinegar
• Preheat the grill to medium heat
• Put the avocados face down on a hot open grill for about a minute; turn and cook for another minute or so [although i like to cook them a little longer; until they get the dark grill marks on them and the balsamic starts to carmelize just a touch…mmmmm]
• Remove from the grill and shave parmesan over them while they’re still warm

When I received an email from the Domestic Goddess, asking me to join her Canada Day blogging event, I could think of one dessert in particular that deserved mention.

The pouding chômeur, or poor man’s pudding, simply put, is a sponge cake with a thick caramelized maple sauce that drips through the cake during cooking time. The top becomes golden with syrup and the bottom becomes spongey and saucy. and mmmm just reaaally nice!

For the time being, I only have the recipe in French. Tomorrow if I can be bothered and if I’m not too busy unpacking more boxes, I’ll post a translated recipe (unless a kind soul wants to do it for me!) This isn’t my mother’s recipe, I can’t totally vouch for it, but it seems to be similar enough to succeed.

Also, I can’t find a good picture for the life of me, so wait till I make a batch (this weekend maybe?) and I’ll put a pic up!

Pouding chômeur

Préparation : 35 min
Cuisson : 45 min
Portions : 12

Gâteau:
1 1/2 tasse (375 ml ) de farine
1 c. à thé (5 ml) de poudre à pâte
1/4 tasse (60 ml) de beurre
1 tasse (250 ml) de sucre
1 tasse (250 ml) de lait

Sauce à l’érable:
1 tasse (250 ml) de sirop d’érable
1 tasse (250 ml) de cassonade
1 tasse (250 ml) d’eau bouillante
1/4 tasse (65 ml) de beurre

Préchauffer le four à 325 F.
Tamiser ensemble la farine et la poudre à pâte. Mettre de côté.
Dans un bol, défaire le beurre en crème. Incorporer graduellement le sucre jusqu’à consistance onctueuse.
Verser le quart du lait et de la farine. Mélanger. Répéter jusqu’à épuisement du lait et de la farine.
Beurrer un moule rectangulaire de 13×9 pouces (32×22 cm). Verser la pâte. Réserver.
Dans une casserole, mélanger tous les ingrédients de la sauce. Porter à ébullition et laisser bouillir quelques instants.
Verser la sauce sur la pâte. Ne pas mélanger.
Cuire à 325F pendant 45 minutes.

(Cross posted from my food blog as a Canada Day celebratory post!)

Following the publication of the book French Women Don’t Get Fat, Clotilde from Chocolate & Zucchini got involved in a discussion with 3 other French women. Her post about it is here along with the follow-up comments, while the transcript of the discussion on the subject is here.

What came out of the discussion was plain old-world common sense; balanced small meals, treats in moderation, walking and exercising to make up for indulgences and fresh, locally grown produce, avoiding prepared and processed meals. What struck me as something I know but haven’t been practicing recently for lack of a dining room, or a dining table for that matter, is enjoying a meal away from distractions, focussing on the freshly cooked food and conversation with dinner company.

(Cross posted to my food blog)

Following Jamie’s School Dinners tv series, the British government is finally reacting to the needs for better food in school cafeterias.

Chef Jamie Oliver has welcomed the government’s extra £280m to tackle the school meals “crisis” in England. At least 50p will be spent on each primary school lunch and 60p in secondaries. Some primaries currently spend as little as 37p on ingredients.

Cynics will say the money will go to the private caterers and never really reach the plates of the students or that Jamie is doing it for personal publicity. Yeah, sure! Both of those comments have truth to them, but how many parents and children will look for chicken breasts rather than re-formed chicken next time they shop for chicken nuggets after seeing Jamie’s presentation on what’s in those nuggets? A good few will at least have the memory looming about when choosing!

Awareness of health and eating habits is a start. Now, it’s up to the parents to teach their kids what good food is, both at school and at home!

With the back-and-forth pull between the attraction to junk food some people have and the opposite movement to be healthy and free of toxins, a new name has been given to the more common than ever obsession with healthy eating. Dr Steven Bratman has named it orthorexia nervosa: literally, “fixation on righteous eating.”

I mean who else can identify the nutritional value of a product at 20 paces? Who else keeps a log book of the calorific breakdown of all their meals?

Who else painstakingly coasts the shelves for produce that is organic, no added sugar, low in saturated fats, high in essential fatty acids, locally produced, packaged in biodegradable cellulose, with a big fat fair-trade cherry on top?

Although I wouldn’t say it’s a very common obsession over here in Britain as there isn’t quite as much junk food temptation at all times, therefore less of a backlash into healthy eating. People just seem to eat averagely healthy, with some but less people reaching into the extremes of junky eating or obsessively healthy eating.

On the other hand, I can certainly say some friends in their early 20s over in Canada exhibited these exact symptoms. Of course, it’s fantastic to hold an interest in eating healthy and knowing what’s in our food, but it shouldn’t take over one’s life.

Without going into depths of the why and how of eating disorders, this certainly strikes me as another symptom of the ideals of perfection we all seem to try to reach in today’s world.

Via BBC Magazine.

Cross-posting from my other blog:

Salmon & Prawns brochettes and Veggie Kebabs for the BBQ. MmmMmmMmm

Jamie’s School Dinners shows the junk food culture in schools and the unbelievable lack of education kids have towards food and health. Most of them didn’t manage to recognize rhubarb, a leek or an asparagus. They ate Turkey Twizzlers and stayed away from anything that wasn’t processed, with added fat and/or full of sugar.

Dear ol’ Jamie Oliver (aka Mr. Salad Man) decided to attack the bad habits and teach the kids all about good food. It took a long time to convince them to even taste a piece of organic chicken or a bite of asparagus, but in the long run, kids not only enjoyed eating healthier, they even got involved in a bit of cooking!

It’s frightening to think children are surviving on reformed chicken nuggets and smiley-face-shaped chips (french fries for the north americans). I’m not planning on having children aaaaaanytime soon, but the idea of my child eating such junk all day long is very worrying! Kids seem to be growing in width faster than they’re growing in height!

The fact that Jamie cooked the school dinners in question on the same 37p per head budget that is used in schools across the area proved that eating well doesn’t have to be more expensive.

Damn, I love my food too much to want to subsist on Turkey Twizzlers and Dr. Pepper! Bring on the Maple & Mustard Basted Pork Roast!

I decide to start myself another blog dedicated to food and drinks! This way, I won’t be drowning this blog in food comments, though I’m sure I’ll cross-post between both blogs when I find something irresistible!

It’s like one big recipe box for those nights where choosing what to cook feels like a chore.

It’s also my WordPress 1.5 sandbox, so the look and feel of it will probably change regularly and possibly look all messed up sometimes.

We left Friday night and made it down to Brighton in record time, considering everyone expected the snow to cause traveling to grind to a halt. It was a nice chilled out evening in with Lisa, Stu and the cats… oh and the bottles of wine, boys?

Saturday, we lazed all morning, enjoying Stu’s fantastic (almost) full English breakfast. Later on, with an uncertain sky and the occasional snow flurry that appeared very out of place in the Brighton landscape, we headed into town for some shopping. My attempt at finding a new coat was just as fruitless as Andrew’s attempt to find new shoes, but it was a good afternoon nonetheless.

As the afternoon was coming to an end, the other Andrew (aka Hodgson) joined us for a prospective evening of fun, food and music. We booked a table at Moshi Moshi and headed into town for a few drinks before dinner. Since Hodgson was feeling adventurous, I encouraged him to have the same “Gourmet Selection” of sushi I was having, even though he admitted never trying sushi before. As the pictures in the gallery tell, I thoroughly enjoyed my meal. It was the biggest plate of sushi I’d ever had and must say neither me or Mr. H managed to finish it all up, but it was DELICIOUS! The salmon was sooo fresh!

So once the meal was over, we rolled out of there on our big bellies and Lisa decided to go home. I was a bit bummed she’d miss out on LAL, but turns out, being home in bed might have been the better option. As LAL wasn’t on until past midnight at Enigma, we went for a drink at the most bizarre pub/club I’ve ever seen below the club. The atmosphere wasn’t great for anyone still in the realm of sobriety so we headed upstairs to see the gig I’d been looking forward to for a few months.

When Rose, the singer from LAL, arrived, I went to say hi and let her know the Canadian support was in town. She confessed the tour had been rather tiring and she wasn’t in best singing health, so she wouldn’t be doing many songs. What a shame, but fair enough, I understood how a month-long tour across Canada and Europe could take its toll on her. But even with warning, I was sorely disappointed by the show LAL put on. Moonstarr had set the mood with the crowd and people seemed to be enjoying the tunes, but LAL didn’t manage to keep it going. The small stage-cum-dancing-platform emptied and people just stood around bobbing their heads, unsure of what to do. Rose stayed behind the DJ booth, and the sound was so badly balanced, if I hadn’t paid attention, I wouldn’t have noticed there was anyone singing live in there! To add insult to injury, the DJ, who I assume was Murr, seemed to have difficulties beatmatching, a painful reminder of Ottawa’s amateur open-decks nights.

I can’t lie, the show wasn’t up to scratch. No one in the club last night will have thought “wow, LAL is great, I’m going to buy their album and see them live again!”, and it pains me to say that. I love both albums to death, that hasn’t changed. And I thought Rose was a real sweetheart when we got to chat, but someone has to tell them they owe music lovers a good show, however much effort it takes. She did say that in June, she would be back to London with the full band, rather than only herself and Murr. I can imagine it’ll be a good show, but whether I’ll be willing to make the trip to London and risk being disappointed a second time, that’ll remain to be seen.

Overall, a lovely weekend of food, drinks and friends. Just a shame about the music, really… Now that we’re home, snuggling up on the sofa with a good book sounds like the best way to end the weekend!

View Full Gallery...

Not terribly useful for me, but here is a list of restaurants where you can eat under $10 in New York. It’s been making me hungry, reading through the descriptions of all 100 mostly family-run restaurants/joints… Now if only someone could do this for London.

Found through Paul.

This snippet of interesting information was found through Treehugger’s blog. Prêt à Manger is a popular chain in big cities like Manhattan, Hong Kong and London. I only recently found out that their tasty food is also grown according to higher standards than I would usually expect from a fast foody place.

It’s fast food that thinks slow. They’ve got breakfasts, sandwiches, soups, salads and desserts and you can be guaranteed that they are free of preservatives, artificial colorings, flavorings, sweeteners, and partially-hydrogenated fats, and that their turkey, chicken, beef, and ham all come from small co-ops and family-run farms that don’t give their animals any antibiotics or hormones. They also do what they can to source Organic ingredients. At this point, at least, their milk, eggs, coffee, tea, juices, chocolate and popcorn are all organic. And the taste? Well, reports are good.

No wonder I liked their generously filled sandwiches… Even their pre-packed sushi was decent to fill that lunch time craving. The reality of organic food in this day and age is that it is expensive and someone has to pay the tab. Apparently the over-pricing of sandwiches doesn’t cut the mustard, and a big wig of the food industry had to back them up.

In 2001, McDonalds helped them out with about $25 million and took a 1/3 stake in the company. Pret claims that “McDonald’s do not have any direct influence over what we sell or how we sell it; nor would they want to. They have invested in Pret because they like what we do.â€?

Although Prêt isn’t what I’d call a “family initiative” or anything, it’s still offering freshly made, somewhat healthier food than McD’s so let’s hope the corners aren’t cut to make more profit, resulting in not much more than a memory of healthy organic food. If the only contribution from McD’s is financial and the little guy still uses fresh ingredients in the Prêt sandwiches, then we’ll all have happy bellies.

Coffee is so good but so bad… I love my little vanilla latte on a Friday morning but it turns me into a stressball… It doesn’t particularly wake me up, it just makes me feel wired and tense!

I’d say I’ll quit drinking coffee, but I know it’s not going to happen.. Maybe I should try decaf… Wow that’ll be a mouthful at 9am! “Hi Vanessa, can I get a skinny decaf vanilla latte?” *passes out on coffee shop counter*

I was planning on making my same old butternut squash, pecorino and prosciutto salad as I usually make, but Andrew had a fantastic idea.

He’s making a steamed butternut squash, zucchini, carrots & green chilli bubble & squeak. Yes, dear North American friends, I can hear you ask what bubble & squeak! It’s what’s generally made with leftover cooked vegetables and potatoes by mashing and grilling or frying them all together. It’s really tasty! Heehee we cheated by adding a few slices of lean Canadian bacon into it!

MmmmMmmm smells so good! I’m looking forward to dinner! *wipes drool*

These are the ultimate coolest egg cups! Little hippie van eggcups with a surfboard-come-salt shaker. They’re from Free Spirit in Brighton, and Andrew’s sister and her hubby bought them for us for Christmas.

Today was their christening with the first successful boiled eggs in a while… I seem to have lost my ability to make perfect soft boiled eggs. But they’ve inspired me, with a little help from Delia, I’ll make good boiled eggs again!

Forgot to mention, we had a fantastic New Year’s eve. We organised to have dinner with our downstairs neighbours, Jerome & Nicky. We started around 8pm with cheese fondue, followed by a chinese broth fondue consisting of fresh salmon, tuna, prawns and steak dunked in a really fragrant broth.

Later on, we went out for some fresh air and fed the leftover bread from the cheese fondue to the ducks, waking them up in the process… Andrew nearly pulled off an “About A Boy” by whacking a duck on the head with some of the dry bread.

We then rushed back indoors, realizing it was nearly midnight and time to watch the Big Ben event on tv. We followed that by a nice big slice of Bakewell tart lovingly made by Nicky (and a bit of help from her mum!) and a little jig on the Dance mat for a laugh. Around 1:30-2am, we decided it was time for bed, and headed back to our apartment. I love being able to get home on my socks…

Of course, the late food, the quantity of food, and the sugar in the Bakewell tart made for a rather restless sleep but I still count this as one of our most successful fondue nights and a nice way to spend New Year’s eve.

I hope everyone else’s New Year’s eve was good too!

I think I’m in love with the Twinings tea with Vanilla and Coconut. It’s sooo nice, I just love the bit of flavour it adds to my good ol’ cup o’ tea! It also means I don’t put any sugar in my tea, which can’t be bad! I’m sure the true blue tea addicts would think it’s crappy but it matters not to me!

I heard about the Celestial Seasonings Vanilla Chai tea which I’d love to try, but I don’t think we can get it here! If anyone in Canada feels like sending me a couple of boxes, it’ll be very welcome!

I’m addicted to vanilla flavoured everything again… It’s a love story between vanilla and I!

Ughh we bought fresh white bread today and I thought I’d really enjoy having a nice big slice with some butter. Turns out after eating it, it feels like a big ball of flour and dough in my stomach.

Definitely going to stick to wholegrain bread… I can’t stand white bread anymore! :S

But on the other hand, we’ve got some yummy fresh fruits, nice tea and what we need to make really nice homemade soup! Time to eat healthy to make up for the Christmas week and all the indulgences of the weeks before.

MmmMmm today’s a good day. It’s a chilled out day at work, and my Christmas cards-writing morning was accompanied by a nice gingerbread skinny latte. (Updated: It was only a half-hour of card writing, and in exchange I didn’t take a lunch break. Yes I work, stop telling me I make it sound like I don’t do any work!!)

Latte, the drink of Gods. Just enough caffeine to get me going but not enough to make me twitch, shake and panic like some other coffees do. Skinny because it gives me the illusion of being less naughty. Gingerbread because it’s the flavour of the week and it’s very festive. Normally, I go for vanilla, or when I’m feeling wild, I go for hazelnut. I tried some of the other flavours over the years, but they just didn’t do it for me. Coconut made me want to gag, irish cream was depressing since it was non-alcoholic, and the rest just didn’t measure up to the calming and soothing flavour of vanilla!

Today’s a day for staying home, cuddled up in the warmth of our draft-free apartment, watching movies and reading what’s happening on my fave blogs. But there’s still a few days worth of work left to be done around here! Oh Christmas holidays, please come soon!

Beautiful Christmas time drinks…

Long Kiss Goodnight

Ingredients:

Mixing instructions:
Freeze a martini glass and it in shaved chocolate to rim. In a shaker put ice, vodka, Baileys Irish Cream, and white creme de cacao. Shake lightly and pour into martini glass. Garnish with chocolate kiss.

Shamrock Express

Into a shaker 2/3 filled with ice add cold but fresh espresso coffee (or strong filter coffee), half a small shot of vodka, Baileys, and butterscotch schnapps. Shake thoroughly and strain into an ice-filled Old Fashioned glass.

Candy Apple Martini (added 28 Nov)

Shake Apple Schnapps, Butterscotch Schnapps and Vodka (in whatever quantities you want, depending on how sweet you like it!) in a shaker with a lot of ice, until the shaker frosts up on the outside. Pour into martini glass and add a drop of syrup to the bottom if you like ‘em sweet.