27 posts tagged “food”
Weight Watchers works! Those of you who follow Junkii's weekly updates on Facebook already know he's lost 13 lbs in 5 weeks of dieting. Well, I'm holding my own too. I'm down about 12 lbs as of this morning's weigh-in. It's hard to tell exactly because we don't have a digital scale, but that's a pretty close estimate.
My pants fit way better - in fact, they're starting to get a little too loose - and I can actually see my spare tire dwindling away. It's very encouraging.
And the best part is that we really don't suffer very much. True, we haven't yet found a way to indulge in poutine (no matter how many extra points we gain from working out) but we've managed to score a couple of (small) bags of chips chips, we've had shawarma, and we've even found some great 1-point desserts. All in all it's been pretty painless (once you get used to the feeling of never being completely full).
On the other hand, I can't see doing this alone. Despite the encouraging results, I know damn well I wouldn't have lasted if Junkii wasn't there to help with counting points. So I recommend WW for everyone - but I think it is a great program if you have someone to support you along the way.
The Friday evening spa treatment was a great lead-in to the rest of the weekend – a weekend of gourmet experimentation with Mom and George.
We try to do this every year – we gather together and use each other as guinea pigs to try out various recipes that we’ve found over the previous year. Generally these are recipes that we wouldn’t have time to make on our own and that require a level of skill not required in everyday cooking. Then we take the opportunity to critique the food and try to improve on the recipe so we can share it with others later in the year.
Junkii and I had planned out our menu and gone shopping for supplies earlier in the week, so on Saturday all we had to do was pop out to the Byward Market to pick up the last few ingredients before we settled in for the weekend get-together.
Mom and George took responsibility for the dinner on Saturday evening. Or rather, I made them take Saturday because I was going to need more prep time for the Beef Wellington planned for Sunday evening.
Saturday Evening Dinner
Course 1 - Crab Stuffed Mushroom Caps: Tasty little morsels, these – very similar to escargot in terms of flavor profile, but what’s not to like about that? The crab was canned by the people who caught it (friends on the East coast) and shipped straight to Ottawa – so it was very flavorful. Adding them to mushrooms fried in garlic butter and the broiling the whole thing with some cheese on top? Mmmmm.
Course 2 – Oyster Stew: I’m so happy I learned to shuck oysters about 3 weeks ago at my friend’s place. She had an oyster party and I learned to shuck and eat raw oysters. As a result, I was also able to help George get the oysters ready for this creamy, buttery soup. The only problem with this dish was the salt level, and it’s worth making again (and again and again) as long as we remember to use unsalted butter. That way we'll be able to adjust the salt level as needed. But the oysters were so big and tender. Just lovely.
Course 3 – Cranberry and Cabbage Stuffed Pork Loin with Cider Cream Sauce, Served with Green Beans Amandine and Thyme Roasted Potatoes: While slightly overcooked despite my efforts with the instant-read thermometer (sorry Mom!) this was delicious. The cranberry and cabbage stuffing worked really well with the pork, and the cream kept everything nice and moist. The side of beans with toasted almonds is a great side, but the addition of cherry tomatoes was a nice touch, adding a little more complexity to this dish.
Course 4 – Duo of Crème Brulées: While we had a hard time melting the brown sugar with Mom’s butane torch, the flavor of the custards didn’t suffer at all. One was flavoured with Grand Marnier, and the other with Brandy – and it was truly a challenge to figure out which one to eat last. Plus that course was served with Madeira, which none of us had ever tasted before. It’s not quite as complex as a good port, but it’s comparable for sure.
Course 5 – Cheese Platter: A classic way to end a meal – with a selection of cheese (old cheddar, Danish blue, and aged Comté) and a glass of aged Tawny Port. What more could we want?
Sunday we managed both breakfast and lunch. Mom whipped up a breakfast quiche with sausage, mushrooms, onion, and cheese. Nothing new, but always delicious. And for lunch, we had a high-end grilled cheese sandwich along with some leftover soup. The sandwich featured double-smoked cheddar, caramelized onion, and green apple, all grilled in a walnut bread.
Sunday Evening Dinner
Pre-dinner drink - Kiwi Smash Cocktail: Junkii whipped up a round of nice healthy cocktails featuring fresh kiwi, white cranberry juice, and vodka. What a great summer drink!
Course 1 - Comté Gougères with Red Pepper Dip: Another course from Junkii. We were both able to make some serious strides with our pastry making skills – in this case, little cheese flavoured bites that had the consistency of a profiterole, or maybe a Yorkshire pudding, but that tasted of aged comté cheese. The red pepper dip was a perfect accompaniment.
Course 2 - Grilled Scallop Prosciutto and Melon skewers: Neither of us was sure what to expect with this grilled dish - intended as an amuse-bouche - but it turned out to be one of the best of the evening. The melon and scallops complemented each other perfectly, and the prosciutto - on the grill just long enough to get a little crispy – added a tang of salt.
Course 3 - Pear and White Port Soup: I had it on good authority that this was a great recipe, and my friend’s opinion didn’t steer me wrong. This one was yummy, although Junkii didn’t like it quite as well as I did.
Course 4 - Beef Wellington with Red wine sauce, served with Wild Mushroom Risotto and Sautéed Red Swiss Chard: Apparently I don’t like Swiss chard. I’ve had it once before and found it bitter. I found the same again this time. I didn’t even eat it, it was that bad. It would have ruined my meal. But the rest of this course turned out just right. Junkii prepared the risotto and, while it had to sit a little too long in the pot because my Wellington took longer than expected, it was perfect when he was ready to serve it – creamy and delicious. The wellington was a chore to make, but the flavor in the finished product was amazing. And the puff pastry - made from scratch - turned out to be as flaky as can be. The part that took the longest was the sauce which had to reduce from about 15 cups(!) of liquid down to about 1 cup. In the end it was worth it though, and had really intense flavour.
Course 5 - White Pepper Praline Cheesecake: This dessert was to die for! Who knew that white pepper would go so well with cheesecake. And the maple wine that we served with it really brought out the peppery notes. This is now one of my favorite cheesecakes; and this was only Junkii's first attempt at making a cheesecake. Bravo!
Both nights were undeniable successes. And despite being a lot of food, we really limited our portions, and we took our time between courses so that we never felt overfull. We learned a lot this weekend and we’re already looking forward to our next get together.
What have I got myself into?!
This coming weekend, Junkii and I are joining my Mom and Step Dad for a gourmet cooking weekend. We all love to cook, so, as we do every year, we're gonna try out some high-end recipes and put our kitchen skills to the test. Two days of food and drink. What could be better? Diet be damned!
So what are we making? Well, loads of things, actually, but for me the whole meal is going to centre around an attempt at Beef Wellington.
I've been wanting to try BW since I started watching Hell's Kitchen years ago. It always looks so tasty on television. Tender beef wrapped in puff pastry: What's not to like? So when Cook's Illustrated listed their Welly recipe, I snatched it up and stuck it on my to-do list. Thing is, I added it to the list before I had a chance to read through it.
Well, last night I finally read it and it's a real doozy. It takes about 3 DAYS to make!
Just for a start, you've got to let the beef dry-age in the fridge for two days. But aside form the waiting, there are about four parts to the recipe, each of which take several hours of prep time - including a puff pastry wrap and a wine sauce that needs to reduce form a whole bottle of red down to about two cups. That's a lot of reducing.
While the final product looks and sounds delicious, the whole process is gonna take hours to make. And what's worse is that it all needs to come together just in time for dinner at the right time, with all the sides, following the soup course.
Now, in fairness, the Chef Ramsay version of Beef Wellington seems much simpler; it's readily available on the intertubes. But what the heck. May as well go all out if I'm gonna try this. I'm not promising perfection, but I do trust Cook's Illustrated to steer me on the right course.
I'll let you know how it turns out.
We're now three days into the Weight Watchers program, and already we're finding it onerous to count points. But in fairness, while it's a bit of a hassle to plan out every meal, the portions are in fact adequate (if only just) and we don't seem utterly limited by the types of foods we can eat - we had shawarma on Wednesday, and we're having lamb sausage tonight.
So all in all, so far so good. And I for one want to encourage this diet.
You see, Junkii is the corrupter in this relationship - this is no secret. He'd be the first to cop to that charge. He's usually the one to cave in to our culinary cravings. He'll suggest chips, poutine, and KFC much more frequently than I will. But now he's got an extra check to prevent him from cheating - two extra checks, actually:
- He's got to get weighed every week at the WW meeting, which is a good motivation to work extra hard to lose weight.
- He's paying for the program (I'm just tagging along) and really he can't afford to just throw his hard-earned money away without actually benefiting from it.
Now we'll just have to see how long we can both hold out form indulging in our favorite comfort snacks.
Neither of us has been to many weddings. Not sure why – maybe we only know non-committal people – but that’s how it is. As a result, the only things we knew about bachelor parties was what we had gleaned from Hollywood. We knew strippers had to be involved at some point, but other than that we were pretty clueless.
So when we got around to planning our friend’s stag, we were a bit out of our depth. We’d planned parties before, but this needed to be more of a multi-location series of events. We were both a bit nervous once Saturday came around and we got into the thick of it – but we needn’t have worried. It came off beautifully.
Part 1 – Surprise Event
Our research told us that we needed to do something that the groom wasn’t expecting, so we racked our brains to find just the right thing. Junkii was stellar, coming up with laser tag, paint ball, a day at the spa, the casino, white water rafting, waterslides, and an aerial adventure just to name a few. But I liked his suggestion of wall climbing best of all – and we knew none of us had ever tried it before.
So we told the groom to be at our place with gym clothes at 1pm, and off we went to the Coyote Rock Gym. They gave us all a few lessons on how to harness ourselves and how to belay (i.e. make sure the climber doesn’t fall). We each climbed the practice wall twice and we each belayed for a climber twice - then we were set free to explore the rest of the gym!
Which was great, but after just a few more climbs we all found that our gripping
strength was starting to fade. It wasn’t long before we had to pack it in.
Still, we managed to climb for the better part of two hours, and it’s
definitely something Junkii and I will go back to. We just have to wait until our forearms stop hurting.
And of course the groom had fun and was surprised – so we achieved our goals!
Part 2 – Drink
We then headed home to our pad and everyone had showers and enjoyed a beer or two. We got a chance to chill out a bit and then, after about an hour, it was on to…
Part 3 – Dinner
We drove out to Kanata for dinner - a big thank you to both Junkii and Stephen for staying sober. Yes, we hear you saying, “Kanata?!” but you’ll see why shortly.
We went to Moxie’s Classic Grill, which is a beautiful space with pretty good food for a chain. But of course the main reason we went was because all the waitresses are actually hired as models. So the groom was assured of some eye candy while he ate. It’s kind of like an upscale Hooters in that way. The waitresses are all well dressed though, and the décor is nicer.
Part 4 – Drink
Of course drinks were part of dinner, as well as part of the next event…
Part 5 – Roller Derby!
None of us had ever been before, and no one knew the rules, but turns out you didn’t need to. Everything was explained before the bout started.
Our team – the Rideau Valley Slaughter Daughters – were hosting a team from Vermont in this, their last home game of the season. The timing couldn’t have been better - scheduling their last game for the night of the bachelor party! We arrived with 30 minutes to spare, so we'd have time to grab some beers, and took our seats for a quick demonstration about how the game is played.
It’s such a fun sport – and quick. The two 30 minute periods go by in a flash, and they’re separated by a break to give us time to drink more.
We left about 20 minutes before the end, but the Slaughter Daughters were creaming the Vermont team. So there was no chance of a comeback. We’ll be back next season for sure. So fun.
Here's a quick video of part of the match.
Part 6 – Drink (you see a trend yet?)
Repeat step 2, but without showers and exchanging beer for martinis.
We were supposed to go bar hopping at this point, but the groom preferred to just relax at our place for a bit. So we stayed there until it was time for the finale...
Part 7 – Strippers!
The evening ended in the Market at the BareFax Gentleman’s Club. I'm serious - it's actually called a gentleman's club. Like you'll walk inside to see dapper, upper-class fops with top hats and monocles sitting in lounge chairs and enjoying a snifter of brandy.
Okay, I’m not gonna get into any details here about what you WILL find inside – some things are best kept private – but suffice it to say we closed the club and even hung around on the street chatting afterwards.
The day was perfectly timed. We never felt rushed. The groom had a fantastic time - as did we all - and . we only regretted it slightly the next day when the headaches set in. Let’s just say we didn’t over-exert ourselves on Sunday.
I'm excited. Today when we get home there will be a gift waiting at our door. A box of vegetables. YAY! Okay, maybe "excited" is too strong a word. Still, I'm feeling some anticipation.
We ordered home delivery of our fruits and vegetables this, week from a company called Ottawa Organics and Natural Foods. They offer a whole array of other organic product aside from these produce baskets, but this is our first order and we're just testing it out. So we're just getting the box - a selection of organic produce that's supposed to last two people about a week.
Delivery is right to your door, which is kind of old fashioned. It hearkens back to the days of food delivery we used to have when I was a child - services like the milk man and the egg man. My sister wrote a post about that a few months ago, if you're curious.
Eventually we'd like to subscribe to this sort of food delivery service over the long-term - but we'd like to find one that concentrates more on local food - whether or not it's organic. Organic food is great for health reasons, but we're more interested in doing this for the health of the planet. And while organic lowers greenhouse gas emissions by limiting the use of petrol-based fertilizers, local produce does it more effectively, reducing the larger problem of carbon emissions from transportation. Ideally we would get local organic produce, but for now, this is a first step.
The cool part is that we don't really know what we're gonna get - not specifically anyway. So it'll be a surprise, like a gift we've given to ourselves. Oh sure, we could find out what's in this week's basket - and we can even set limits and tell them the items we never want to receive - but that's half the fun. The other half is, of course, trying to figure out what the hell we're gonna cook with Kohlrabi and Swiss Chard.
We love Cook's Illustrated. The magazine is simple in its design - relying on drawings and B&W photos - but what an encyclopedia!
We first learned about CI through their PBS show - America's Test Kitchen. The show is a simple how-to cooking show, but rather just just tell you what to do - they actually explain why you need to take a specific approach. They explain the science behind cooking, or at least what can go wrong if you try something a different way. It's more than just a new source of recipes - it's educational.
Well, CI is like the show, only it's in book form and waaaay more thorough. The editors really do a good job of telling you exactly what can go wrong with a given recipe. And the lessons work. So far, everything we've tried from them has been fool proof - Chinese pork, Rainy-Day BBQ pork chops on the stove top, Chicken Tikka Masala. They even have tricks for perfecting steak!
(For a thick steak, heat it in a slow oven until internal temp reaches 90 Fº then throw it on the grill for a few minutes to char it and finish cooking the inside. The 15-20 minutes of slow cooking helps break down proteins making for more tender meat, and you don't overcook the outside while trying to cook the inside).
They run you through every conceivable part of each recipe - from what cut of meat to choose (and why) to which can of tomatoes tastes best. What more could we want?
So we recently subscribed to the magazine. It hasn' arrived yet, but we also ordered the annual hardcover collected editions for both 2007 and 2008 (they were on 2 for 1, yay!) and they arrived last week, chock full of info!
So much to learn. So much great food to try.
The annual Sparks Street Chicken and Ribs cook-off started last night, with contestants from all over the southern US. Last night, we chose to go with this year's defending champions from Alabama, and the result was spectacular. Their pulled pork was to-die-for and the ribs were fall-off-the-bone yummy. And they even had good coleslaw, which doesn't happen all that often.
We're hoping to go back again tonight and then again on Saturday - so maybe we'll try out some of the entries from Florida and New Mexico and see who's best. Haven't found any teams from Texas yet. Maybe I'll go out at lunch and have a look.
Working on Sparks street has its privileges. I can savour the smell of BBQ as I read on my lunch hour. mmmmm. dead pig.
Saturday afternoon was beautiful in Ottawa and, after a morning spent looking at the work of local artists in the Glebe at Art in the Park, Junkii and I got it in our heads that patio season was upon us. We wanted to relax on the deck with our books and some beer.
With a few drinks in the fridge, we decided to put out an open call to anyone who wanted to join us for a little social time on the lanai.
We cast our net through Facebook and Email and, not counting the people who wanted to come but were not in town, we snagged 4 people. Not a bad catch for an impromptu event.
We shared some cheese and crackers, some beers, and some conversation and, once our numbers dwindled, the remaining guests all chipped in for a round of Indian food. A perfect cap to the afternoon.
Tonight being the first nice summer day in Ottawa, we decided to finally inflate our bicycle tires and head out for a little trek before dinner. Of course, nothing we plan ever goes off without a hitch and, after I inflated my front tire, I could hear a leak coming from where the valve meets the inner tube. It wasn't long before the hiss became a gush of air and my tire deflated, along with my spirits.
Fine! No bike ride for me.
So we set about filling Junkii's tires and, just as we pulled the pump off the back tire, the valve needle shot out and his tire went flat. AAARRRGH! What are the odds?!
Oh well, at least we could get them both fixed at the same time. The way our luck works, it would be more likely that mine would go flat, I'd get it fixed, and then his would go flat later in the week.
For me, the only problem was that Junkii's flat was the back tire and, while it was quick-release, I'd never removed a back tire before. It was messy work with the chain and derailleurs, but once I got started it was pretty straightforward. We threw it in the car and headed off to the nearest bike store (thankfully there are two within about a 10 minute walk). $20 later and we were headed home to reassemble our bikes.
By the time we got things back together, it was too late for a leisure ride, but we still went out anyway. We trekked over to Chinatown and grabbed some food, and were able to eat and make it home before it got dark.
Yay. First ride of the season!.
