Great British Bake Off

Robyn got me hooked on this show called the Great British Bake Off. It has inspired me to try baking a couple of the tastier looking things on the show.

Here is Mary Berry's Lemon Tart:

Not bad for a first crack!

Here is a fruit tart that uses the same sweet crust recipe as the lemon tart, with a crème pâtissière (from this recipe) filling. The crust turned out nicer looking this time:

The recipes are brilliant because they're in grams; you can't possibly muck up the measurements.

I made one slip up on the fruit tart. I used Masa Harina for "corn flour", but I should have used corn starch (only the US and Canada refer to "corn starch", the rest of the world calls it corn flour"). It still tastes fine, but the texture is a little bit off. The other UK-ism is that caster sugar is sold as berry sugar in Canada.

Q: Will a king bed fit in our new house? A: Google Sketchup (awesome product!)

Robyn and I were trying to figure out whether a king bed will fit in our new house. To answer that question I immediately downloaded Google SketchUp, which is an awesome (and free!) CAD/drawing application.

Using the blueprints of our new house (possession: January!) that we got when we signed the contract, I had a mockup of our top floor, down to the inch, in about 90 minutes. I could have stopped at the bedroom, but we also wanted to see if my giant desk would fit in a spare bedroom.

So, will a king bed fit in our new master bedroom, and will there be room for bedside tables and dressers? The answer is definitely yes:

In 2009, SketchUp also helped me figure out if I could fit a queen bed in my apartment bedroom, along with my huge desk (split in two) and a bookshelf. The answer was yes - barely:

If you've used any CAD programs before, you'll adapt to SketchUp quickly. There are also lots of SketchUp video tutorials and lessons for beginners. SketchUp is a VERY handy program that can always answer the question "will it fit?" - so long as you know your room/house/whatever's dimensions!

The Coffee Trap

My sweet lady wife moved into my (our!) apartment right after our wedding. So far Robyn and I are pretty good roommates! We share the chores and are good at living together in a tiny space.

Since we pledged our eternal love for one another, Robyn has been setting traps. All over the place. Traps that didn't seem to spring up when my ex-roommate lived here. Items tumble out of cupboards, or fall off our tiny bathroom shelf into the toilet. Mmm, toilet aspirin.

She denies setting these traps but the evidence keeps piling up!

On Monday she set a trap that will be hard to top. Robyn covertly decided that our electric kettle needed cleaning because it supposedly had too much calcium in it.

Cloaked in silence, she filled the kettle (I can only assume, to the brim) with vinegar, boiled it down (I assume) to a thick vinegar syrup, and planted it in front of the sink for me to find during my morning routine.

The next morning my alarm went off at 5:00AM and I set about my automatic morning routine. Bathroom, shower, get dressed, grind coffee, fill kettle, boil kettle, pack lunch, put coffee & water in french press, eat breakfast, brush teeth, press coffee, pour in travel mug, add milk, depart for carpool.

In the carpool I sipped my coffee and was shocked wide awake. But not due to caffeine. Oh no. I thought my brain might be melting in those early morning hours, so I took another, smaller cautionary sip. I could ONLY taste acetic acid. This was alarming because I brew strong coffee. I thought the milk went bad. Very, very bad. But that didn't compute, because I had a glass of milk with breakfast.

When I got to work I poured my coffee down the sink. The bottom third of my travel mug was filled with a spongy disconnected mass of stinky curdled milk globs. It was super gross. Some people who saw (and smelled) what I was doing mug helpfully commented, "that's gross."

I texted Robyn and asked if she filled the kettle with vinegar, and if not, to watch out for the milk. She texted me her confession and apologized profusely, but I can only imagine that she was clasping her hands together, laughing maniacally and laying her next trap.

I have insider intelligence that she will be blogging her side of the story. I'll leave it to my discerning readers to evaluate the facts for themselves.

Not Going Back to Non-Stick!

I recently posted about my roommate moving out, and how living alone kind of sucks.

One think that's FUN about roommates moving out is that both parties have to stock up on formerly-shared housewares. Actually, I guess this is only fun if you're financially able to stock up on housewares and you secretly love buying housewares. Hmm.

Anyway, I love housewares. In our apartment, I owned most of the pots, but my roommate owned most of the pans. Most of his pans had a Teflon non-stick coating, with the exception of one gigantic, brilliant, stainless steek wok.

After using that stainless steel wok, I am never going back to Teflon again.

My main beef with Teflon (and any other off-brand non-stick coatings) is not the remote health risks to humans and birds, rather, it's the fact that the coating is not permanent!! From pots to pans to George Foreman grills, everything with a Teflon coating is basically a ticking garbage time bomb waiting to find its way to the dump. My secondary beef with Teflon is that you have to worry about what utensils you use to stir and scrape, or risk accelerating the garbage time bomb.

It doesn't make sense to continue buying $30 Teflon-coated frying pans every 2-5 years. So when my roommate took his magnificent stainless wok away (along with his average Teflon pans) I bought two stainless frying pans and a wok from Home Outfitters for $170.

I'm not trying to say, "Ooooh, look at me, look at all the money I'm spending on pans." I'm just re-learning the same lesson I have to re-learn every few years: buy good quality and it will last a lifetime (see other post about my hunt for the perfect messenger bag). Good quality doesn't have to be TOO expensive. I spotted some pots and pans that cost upwards of $250 apiece - probably because it costs a lot of money to print Jamie Oliver's face on the packaging.

Huevos Motuleños

Robyn came to visit me in Montreal this past weekend (yay!) and we made the most labour-intensive, filling, delicious breakfast ever: Huevos Motuleños!

Robyn found the recipe here, and we modified it a bit by making our own cornmeal tortillas and refried black beans.

Take a gander (click for larger picture!):

The layers are, from bottom to top:

• Homemade cornmeal tortilla
• Re-fried black beans with sauteed mushrooms and onions
• Two fried eggs (almost invisible in this picture) 
• A reduction of pureed tomato, garlic and Serrano pepper (spicy!) 
• A mixture of cottage cheese and feta cheese (a substitute for queso fresco, which we couldn't find)
• Crumbled Italian sausage
• Avacado

SO GOOD! We made the tortillas and the black bean mixture the night before, because we knew it would take a while to prepare and assemble everything. 

Here's a bonus picture of me rolling out cornmeal tortillas with a bottle of scotch (I don't have a rolling pin)

Tasty Weekend Eats: Shredded Pork, Soup, Subs

This weekend I made some tasty food! 

On Saturday I cut up a pork shoulder into 1-inch cubes, threw it in a pot, covered it with water and brought it to a boil with a quartered onion, garlic, and cumin. After skimming the foam, I turned down the temperature and let it simmer for one hour. For shredded pork, you need to use the shoulder because nothing else has enough fat to stay tender during cooking. This is the result: 

After removing from the liquid and letting it cool, I pulled off the fatty bits and shredded it with my fingers, while I got my soup ready:

I added a big handful of the shredded pork to a soup I made with celery, carrots, onions, green onions and pasta: 

It turned out delicious! 

Tonight I took my leftover shredded pork, mixed in some BBQ sauce, ketchup, brown sugar, and some seasonings. I put the mixture into sub buns with some cheese and grilled them on my George Foreman grill: 

The sandwich was also delicious, and I made a second one for lunch tomorrow! Woo-hoo! 

Frozen Seared Steak

Robyn sent me a link to a new way of cooking steaks, promoted by molecular gastronomists - crazy chefs who come up with ingenious new ways of preparing food based on empirical observation and study, chemical reactions, and SCIENCE! It is these molecular gastronomists who have written the six-volume, 2,400 page set Modernist Cuisine,

This blog describes the frozen steak recipe and where it came from - a request for a few molecular gastronomy recipes that can be done at home with no special equipment.

Basically you sear one side of a frozen steak on a mega-hot frying pan, then immediately put the steak in the oven at 200*F for 30-60 minutes, until it's done to your preference.

Here's my attempt:

It turned out GREAT. So, so so delicious. The outside has an incredible seared taste/texture, but the inside is extremely tender and "buttery soft" as the Kitchen Konfidence blog describes. It was dead simple - no more complex than any other way of preparing steak.

Next time I will use a thicker cut of meat, then keep it in the oven for a bit longer. Everyone should try this method at least once, you'll be convinced!

A Fine Meat Sauce

For supper tonight - and for several of my lunches next week - I made a meat sauce using ground-up hot Italian sausage in my wok. It turned out awesome:

Ingredients: 1 package Bowtie pasta, 450g spicy Italian sausage broken (skins removed, broken apart while frying), one red pepper, one onion, green onions, 5 huge mushrooms, can of diced tomatoes, can of tomato paste, and a shot of balsamic vinegar for aroma and flavour. Seriously, balsamic vinegar is awesome in Italian meat sauces.

Turned out great, will make again!

Crab Mac'n'Cheese

Robyn sent me this recipe for Lobster Macaroni and Cheese a while ago and I'd been itching to try it. I made my own version of it on Saturday night, substituting pre-cooked (but real) crab meat for the lobster, and cheddar cheese in place of the fancy cheeses I didn't have. Also, I used a breading mixture instead of panko bread crumbs, which I don't recommend doing (too salty).

Since the recipe was ridiculously rich to begin with, I added a handful of chopped-up bacon - I figured it couldn't hurt :-)

Overall, it turned out delicious, especially considering I improvised all of the measurements! There were a ton of flavours but none of them were too intimidating; they worked nicely together. And it makes awesome leftovers.

Next time, I'd track down the real fancy cheeses and see if I could find the panko-style bread crumbs. But I will make this again!

Lemon Quinoa Chicken Salad

My Saskatoon roommate sent me this recipe for Lemon Quinoa Chicken Salad a while ago and he insisted I make and try it, because it was "delicious".

Well, roommate, checkmate. You were right. It was delicious.

The picture makes it look bland, likely because I omitted cilantro (because I'm one of these freaks). Also I bought sliced almonds and forgot to put them in, rage!!!

So, readers, I highly recommend you construct this food item for yourself!

First Attempt at Lox

Last time I was in Saskatoon, Robyn and I went out for lunch with our friends Steph and Brett. Brett and I ordered a delicious lox sandwich, and I commented on how awesome if it would be if you could make it at home.

A foolish statement! Brett quickly informed me that it is one of the easiest recipes in the world. Take salmon, pack it in some salt, sugar, and pepper, and let it sit in the fridge with a weight on it for a few days. That's it.

I got it started last week (picture here) and pulled it out of my fridge on Thursday. Here's the results:

I cut a tiny piece off the corner and it was SO GOOD! I collected everything I needed to make a proper lox bagel with cream cheese:

Here's the meal:

As soon as I took the first bite of the sandwich, I realized I'd made a mistake - it was WAY too salty! This was a two-part error. For one, I'd left it in the fridge in the salt pack for too long (a colleague suggested three days curing was perfect; I did 6.5), and secondly my slices, while thin, were still too thick.

Also, I was not a huge fan of capers (the green things), but I tried them because that's traditionally what's needed for this sandwich.

Next time: fewer days in the fridge, thinner slices, no capers, and a dash of smokey whiskey while it's curing to add some smoke flavour. I will attempt this again... and it will be good!

Tasty Weekend Eats

I am now a master of the amazing weekend brunch:

Mushroom and cheese omlette with spaghetti squash hash browns.

I also have a batch of lox brining away in my fridge for later this week:

Salt, pepper, brown sugar, and time (about a week) and it will be done!

I have also been making a few batches of super-simple oven-fried fish! Very simple and tasty: give the fillets a quick milk bath, cover in bread crumbs and pepper, toss in the oven (high rack) at 450*C for 10-15 minutes.

That's all for now... back to hovering on Twitter for election result info!

Pork Tenderloin

I'd eaten it previously, but I never really realized how amazing pork tenderloin was until about a year or so ago - Robyn turned me on to it. It's cheap, simple, versatile, and extremely delicious: tender (true to its name), juicy and near-impossible to screw up.

At the Metro (grocery store) below my apartment I can get a full pork tenderloin for under $5, easily enough for two meals. Do ANYTHING to it, throw it in the oven for ~35 minutes at 425*F, and BAM, amazing supper.

On Tuesday I was feeling a combination of lazy and hungry - a dangerous combination that could normally lead to Subway or Pad Thai. But instead of fast food I grabbed a pork tenderloin for $4.80 and some asparagus. I Googled "easy pork tenderloin" and found this dead-easy recipe. Breadcrumbs, olive oil, pork, and you're done!

I tossed the asparagus in Mrs Dash and olive oil and threw it on the George Foreman grill for 8 minutes. It could have used 2 more minutes, but was still good. I had some olive ciabatta buns that I garlic-buttered and tossed in the oven for the last 10 minutes.

Total cost, about $10 for two meals' worth, and prep and cooking time was about 45 minutes total. Yumm.

Amazing Spicy Peanut Chicken

My roommate in Saskatoon sent me a link to this recipe and I made it last night:

1 diced onion
oil
1Lb chicken (cubed)
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 Tbsp lemon juice
3 Tbsp Soy sauce
2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 cup water
1 Tbsp fish sauce (optional)
3-5 cups fresh spinach 

Sautee onion in oil unbtil slightly brown. Add chicken and garlic and cook until almost done. Add soy sauce and lemon juice and chili and sugar. Cook for a little bit. Add PB and water and stir until thickened. Fold in spinach leaves until whilted. serve over rice or by itself.

SIMPLY AMAZING. I added a bit of cayenne pepper for extra kick. The recipe is quite similar to an already-awesome dish my mom makes (Mongolian Beef) and I can't say that one is better than the other, but they are both knock-out dishes. Here's the spicy peanut chicken:

I made a pizza for supper tonight - pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, and feta cheese. Mmmmm:

Confession, the pizza crust came in packs of two, so I really made two pizzas which I will be eating for the next several days.

--

I am looking forward to making the trip back to Saskatoon this weekend! I bought myself a small carry-on bag for $50, I figure it's a good investment considering I will be making lots of these weekend trips. On my first trip home I thought I was smart by packing everything in one of those reusable grocery bags, but I just felt like a hobo and it was annoying that it didn't close (and spilled underwear and socks everywhere when it tips over!).

Less than four weeks until the Rush concert and less than eight weeks until Iceland!

Sub Buns!

Today I made buns from this recipe! Just like my casserole making experience, this one starting by Googling "subway buns recipe" and picking the first result.

I was intimidated by the recipe because I haven't made bread or buns since Home Economics in Grade 8 (well, with yeast - I've made biscuits and beer bread but those are "mix all ingredients together and bake" recipes).

Post-rise, pre-bake

I think they turned out perfectly!!

I grabbed a few thin slices of pork from the grocery store and tossed them on the George Foreman Grill for five minutes, and grabbed tomato, lettuce, honey mustard, and a bit of mayo and bam! Delicious sandwich time.

One for supper, one for lunch tomorrow! Also, Rickard's Dark on special for $15 for a 12-pack - hooray Quebec beer prices!

The verdict: Really tasty, easier to make than I thought they'd be. There is a fair bit of sugar in the recipe so they taste slightly sweet - not dessert bun sweet, but sweet like white bread from Subway would be.

I will for sure make these again!!

Gas Mine Explosion, Steaks, Balcony View, Potato Bacon Soup

MOST EXCITING BLOG TITLE EVER!!!!!!!!


This is an awesome beer with an even more awesome bottle. Coup de Grisou roughly translates to "gas mine explosion". I had a bottle or two of this on Sunday with Scrabble:

On Monday - Valentine's Day - I made a lonely, yet extremely delicious steak and confirmed that the grocery store in my building does indeed have excellent meat:

Also on Monday I decided to stand on my balcony for the first time and check out the evening view in full:

I think I am the only apartment with safety netting and I can't figure out why.

Last but not least, I made some very tasty potato bacon soup this evening, based on this recipe.

Here's what I did differently from the recipe:

• Used less chicken stock and substituted water. I expected this to be salty and it's even still a bit too salty for my tastes - but still really delicious! 
• Blended it before adding bacon. The recipe omits this step, and there are some funny comments from people complaining they made "potatoes in broth". Well... blend it, then! 

That's it for now.. looking forward to visiting Saskatoon in a week's time!

Pizza Casserole

I have been a bit lazy with updating my blog for the past few days!

I had supper with Ellen and Vince and their kids on Wednesday, that was a ton of fun. They made cheese fondue (delicious!!) and I got to play with their cute, high-energy kids for a few hours. I got pigeon-holed into reading books for an hour (fun!) and eventually there wasn't any more time for "one last book" (although there were several "last" books).

The only meal (until today) that was noteworthy was an attempt at a sole, scallops & veggies dinner, but the sole completely disintegrated in the frying pan and it was not very photogenic at all! I also made Mongolian Beef which is always delicious! My mom gave me the recipe, and our whole family enjoyed the meal many times before she confessed it was a Weight Watchers recipe - so good!

Oh yeah - Robyn and I booked our trip to Iceland! We're going to check out the land of geothermal heat, scenery, and Vikings from May 20-30! I'm excited.

Tonight I was in the mood for a casserole. I've never made a casserole on my own, but I ate lots of casseroles of different types growing up, and I just had a craving for something hearty on this snowy day:

I Googled "casserole" and the first result was this recipe for Pizza Casserole. Hell yes, I thought!

It was a simple recipe - "boil noodles, fry ground beef, mix together, bake". Boo-yeah.

The verdict: hearty and filling like a casserole should be, but probably not the most healthy casserole option out there!

Tonight I am off to play Scrabble with my engineering pal and some other people, should be good times!

Onion, Leek, Asparagus & Cauliflower Soup

Tonight I made another soup! I fried an onion in some butter, then added all of the vegetables, then added water until the veggies were just barely covered. Then I added about a cup of chicken stock. Then I cooked it, then I blended it and stirred in some cream! The result is a massive pot of tasty soup!

The recipe is based off one I learned with Robyn at our cooking lesson at Hole in the Wall Restaurant. Except I didn't have nutmeg to grate on top, and their version didn't have asparagus. 

Now I have four Gladware containers full of this stuff to freeze... yumm. It was delicious!

Who forgot to tell me making soup was so easy!?

Mushroom Soup & Guinness Bread

My packages arrived today - hooray!

Everything I own.

After work I went grocery shopping (I LOVE having a grocery store in the same building as me) and got a ton of food to make mushroom soup and beer bread for supper!

Here is some delicious homemade mushroom soup, made with white and portobello mushrooms! I used this recipe as a base but didn't have all of the ingredients, so I winged it.

I also made beer bread! This is a recipe that Robyn found a long time ago and we've made a ton of variations. It's the easiest possible bread to make in the world, but you can change the bread drastically by using different types of beer. We've used white beers for light breads, today I used Guinness for a dark, heavier bread:

I need to experiment a bit more with my oven; I don't think it's has hot as mine in Saskatoon. That calls for... more bread!

Settling Part II

Today there was a lot of snow in Montreal!

After work I hopped in a cab and went to IKEA. The drive out there was scary - it was the middle of a snowstorm and the driver was texting and watching live TV on his cellphone the whole way. I guess that isn't illegal in Quebec like it is in Saskatchewan.

I had supper at IKEA:

Salmon, vegetables, and vegetable cakes made of potatoes and broccoli!

IKEA rules. I bought... pretty much one of everything for furniture. I didn't get much kitchen stuff because I am shipping most of that from Saskatoon. I had three massive carts by the end. Manoeuvring is hard when you have a queen-size mattress right in front of you and two other carts to lug around.

I don't want to publicize how much I spent, but I was pretty impressed at how (relatively) cheap it is to furnish a full apartment from IKEA. The only thing missing was chairs for my table - they were sold out of every wooden chair under $50! Sorry, I am not spending $80 or more per chair when I want to buy four, nor am I buying a bunch of plastic chairs that have a sticker that says "MAX WEIGHT 220 LBS". I'm a big guy, come on.

Tomorrow evening is IKEA delivery and Friday I get internet in the apartment! I have my hotel until Sunday so everything is lining up perfectly.

A buddy from Engineering made contact with me today, turns out he is in Montreal! I revealed I was furnishing with IKEA and he revealed his secret love for assembling IKEA furniture, so we might have a drink-beer-and-assembe-furniture party.

Last point, I decided that I'm going to revive my old Facebook album "Being Domestic" in the form on a blog tag. I'll post about tasty foods, mostly homemade stuff!