Category: Cooking

In the Back Yard

This Sunday was Father’s Day, and our family had the chance to spend the day primarily out on the new back deck. You see, as of two weeks ago our back yard looked like this:

You see, we had a deck when we first moved in, but the previous owners had done everything wrong. They’d tied it into the house, they’d painted it with interior paint, they’d lined the ground underneath with plastic causing water to pool there… So much poor construction. There are all kinds of pictures of the original in my post about building a garden, when I took the old deck out to make room for my vegetable garden. But when that deck was gone, we didn’t have the funds to build a new one right away, so that section just became a mud pit for a few years (the ground here is mostly clay and is slick when wet). My husband used a few salvaged paving stones to keep the barbecues from sinking too badly, but that’s all we were able to do for a while.

Last week, though, my brother-in-law built us a deck. The actual work only took a couple of days, and with all of his experience in the trade he made it look so easy! (It would have taken me a month, and much frustration and swearing.) Not only did he build the deck, but he re-leveled the ground underneath so that now it drains away from the house instead of toward. He also put in gravel with a layer of landscape fabric underneath, creating better drainage and resisting weeds at the same time. (You would think that the lack of sun underneath would keep plants from growing at all, but I have been waging war against an ivy vine since I moved into this house.)

So no more mud pit, proper drainage, and a lovely deck upon which to spend the summer! We’re just waiting on the delivery of some new boards for the stairs so that they match, since I’d salvaged old stair brackets we wanted to use. But for now it’s totally functional, and still beautiful. I am so happy!

Having a brand new lovely deck encouraged me to get off my butt and plant my main vegetable garden, too. My tomatoes actually self-seeded this year — not in those nice straight lines, I picked the best ones and arranged them how I liked. Now we’ll have to see how well they fruit. I also planted white radishes, eggplants, onions, beets, and potatoes. The potatoes are where nothing has sprouted above-ground yet, but I find they can be slow starters.

The weather was so lovely this weekend that we ended up spending most of our time in the back yard. Sunday was especially warm, and I didn’t want to cook indoors, so my husband did the stereotypical thing of grilling up some hamburgers on Father’s Day. It was so nice to be able to just sit outside and enjoy the summer — although there was a fair amount of goofing around too, and my hubby playing soccer with the kids. All in all, it was a lovely, low-key Father’s Day.

Now to plan a nice barbecue for next week so that I can have my BIL over for a thank-you meal!

Healthy Summer BBQ

We are almost done having a deck installed in our back yard, covering the mud pit that used to be there where the old, rotten deck used to be that we hadn’t had the funds to replace. The new deck was supposed to be done last week, but some of the deck boards in the package that was bought were warped or otherwise damaged, and we’ve been waiting since last Wednesday for Home Depot to deliver the replacements. Two delivery dates have come and gone, and the delivery never showed up… Needless to say, we are not amused.

But most of the deck is done, which means the barbecues are back in place and it’s time to cook outside!

Dinner started with a lovely fruit smoothie: banana, peach, strawberry, mango, and orange juice, with all the fruit other than the banana coming out of a package in the freezer that I really needed to use up. The kids loved it.

Dinner for me was quite filling, although you’d never believe it from the look of it! It was salmon in a honey dijon marinade, which I bought grill-ready from the grocery store, and zucchini cooked with a bit of olive oil and salt. I made it all up on the wood pellet barbecue, which added a lovely smokey overtone to the whole dish.

Of course, the kids wanted — and received — hot dogs made in the microwave. You can’t win them all.

Sun Noodle Brand Instant Shoyu Ramen

My trip to T&T last week resulted in me bringing home a whole load of new things I wanted to try, of course. The first one that I broke out was Sun Noodle Brand Instant Shoyu Ramen. It’s about $6.50 per frozen package, but each one serves two, so even though it’s not as cheap as the dried, instant stuff, it’s still a pretty darned affordable meal.

I’ve had shoyu broth, which is predominantly chicken and soy sauce flavoured, in Japan, and at Ichiko Ramen (formerly Ginza Ramen), and I’ve made it at home as well. (The fantastic — and easy! — homemade soup base recipe can be found on page 8 of Simply Ramen by Amy Kimoto-Kahn (2016) or at easypeasyjapanesey.com.) Although I’m by no means an expert, I think that I can at least tell what shoyu ramen is supposed to taste like, for the most part.

The package only contains the noodles and the broth, though; the instructions on the back of the package recommend adding your favourite toppings. I needed to make a quick meal, so I went with what we had in the fridge/freezer/pantry: soft-boiled eggs, narutomaki, enoki mushrooms, dried shrimp, and nori.

The verdict on this quick dinner was pretty positive. Sure, it’s not as good as homemade, and definitely not as good as restaurant fare. But it’s miles better than the dried instant kind. The noodles have a better consistency, which in the case of ramen means that they’re chewier (dried ones have a tendency to be soggy when cooked). The broth had more depth of flavour, although the one complaint I did get is that it was a little bit too salty. That might have been because of the dried shrimp, which are quite salty in and of themselves. Usually I add them to my homemade broths, which are very low in salt, and that works well, but they may not be a great combination with packaged stuff. It also could have been because I didn’t water down the broth enough. The instructions gave a range of the amount of water you could use, and then said “to taste”, so I guess our “to taste” is a little more watery than the official directions.

That being said, they were definitely good enough to try again! Maybe I’ll switch up the toppings next time; we could definitely have used more vegetables that night.

The Passing of a Legend

I took one twenty-four hour period away from the Internet last week and took the girls up for their first visit to the cottage that my parents rent for the summer, and it seems like in that time the world decided to fall apart. The local and world political stages became even more polarized, interpersonal crises reared their ugly heads… And on Friday June 8th, Anthony Bourdain, one of my absolute favourite celebrities, committed suicide.

I’m having a very difficult time articulating why the death of this man has hit me so much harder than the passing of other famous people. It’s definitely not because I had any kind of personal relationship with the man; in fact, I had never even met him (although it was kind of a personal goal to get him to sign something at some point). Perhaps part of it is because he was not yet old, and still very vibrant. After all, he was working on Parts Unknown when he died. Perhaps part of it is because of the way that he died. Depression affects many of those that I hold nearest and dearest, and so it is brought up to the forefront of my mind that I might lose loved ones the same way.

So I sat in my favourite corner of my house — the end of the living room couch that I have claimed as mine — with copies of the Bourdain books that I own and an iPad running the old episode of No Reservations about Quebec. I poured myself a stiff drink and listened to his voice over — and honestly, the attitude that came through in his voice overs (and in his non-fiction writing, which played in my head in his voice) were the best part. For example, when describing poutine: “I’d like to introduce you to that most magical and indigenous dish for which every Quebecker holds a rightfully special place in their heart. It’s called poutine, and it’s as unlikely a melange of ingredients of any of the other incongruously bizarre yet much loved national dishes. To experience this conceptually nightmarish yet thoroughly wonderful gastronomic trainwreck, my friend Ian takes me to La Banquise, where demand for this stuff is such that it necessitates staying open twenty-four hours a day.”

It wasn’t until then that I could put into words why Anthony Bourdain’s death devastated me in a way that David Bowie’s, or Alan Rickman’s, or even Carrie Fisher’s never did. You see, although I love music, I will never be a great musician. I love film and television, and even though I worked in the industry it was always behind the scenes — I just don’t have the right stuff to be an actor. But I can cook — not always successfully, not always beautifully, and definitely not professionally, but I can cook. And I can explore. And I can travel. And I can meet people and learn about cultures and traditions and life.

That was what Anthony Bourdain, his writing, and his television career were to me: an inspiration, and a gateway to the world. He traveled and ate and wrote and I could live vicariously through him. Not only that, he didn’t just travel to the hot spots and eat in fancy restaurants, he visited peoples’ homes and ate home cooked food. Heck, he even had a soft spot for street meat. Haute cuisine or a family dinner, he saw it all as important, and he forced us all to see that for all of our differences, we all have at least one thing in common: we all have to eat.

Anthony, you will be greatly missed. The world is lessened with your passing.

Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.
(Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)

But I do think the idea that basic cooking skills are a virtue, that the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill, should become as vital to growing up as learning to wipe one’s own ass, cross the street by oneself, or be trusted with money.
(Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook)

Unless you’re one of us already, you’ll probably never cook like a professional. And that’s okay. On my day off, I rarely want to eat restaurant food unless I’m looking for new ideas or recipes to steal. What I want to eat is home cooking, somebody’s — anybody’s mother’s or grandmother’s food. A simple pasta pomodoro made with love, a clumsily thrown together tuna casserole, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, all of this is pure exotica to me, even when I’ve been neck deep all day in filet mignon and herb-infused oils and all the bits of business we do to distinguish restaurant food from what you get at home. My mother-in-law would always apologize before serving dinner when I was in attendance, saying, “This must seem pretty ordinary for a chef…” She had no idea how magical, how reassuring, how pleasurable her simple meat loaf was for me, what a delight even lumpy mashed potatoes were — being, as they were, blessedly devoid of truffles or truffle oil.
(Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)

T&T Supermarket

I spent a few wonderful hours yesterday perusing T&T Supermarket with a good friend. It really got my creativity rolling to check out so many new ingredients. Sadly, I didn’t find any shiso, which was one of the things I needed for a Pork-Wrapped Egg Onigiri that I wanted to try. I may have to improvise, but that’s nothing new.

As is our wont, we had to stop by the hot foods area (a canteen, really) in the store for some lunch. I grabbed an assortment of foods from the hot buffet, including deep-fried octopus, salt and pepper pork, sweet and sour pork, General Tso chicken, pan-fried pork dumplings, and breaded, deep-fried fish — with a side of rice, of course! Not necessarily the healthiest lunch, but definitely enjoyable. My fave was definitely the octopus.

Pulled Pork

Last night we had my brother-in-law over for dinner again, so I had to make a meal that was filling enough for a family of four and a grown man who is seriously into Muay Thai. I settled on pulled pork, using my trusty formula (not really a recipe per se).

This time I served it with mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus, although it would have been a perfect day to run the oven and make some fresh bread. I don’t think it went above 15°C (59°F) and it rained most of the day, so it was pretty damp as well. That’s not horrible weather for spring, but by the time we hit June around here we expect it to be a bit warmer. I have been kind of hoping to start working on my garden this week, but the weather just hasn’t been cooperating. At this point I’m just growing a fantastic crop of weeds, and that’s just sad. I can do better than this.

Breakfast for Supper

Last night I was running errands with the girls until just before dinner time, so I needed a quick, easy, and nutritious meal to feed the family. I chose bacon (cooked in the microwave — it’s much less messy that way), eggs (over easy or scrambled, depending on preference), enormous everything bagels from Costco, and a homemade fruit salad.

It’s a good thing that I chose such a simple dinner, actually, because my brother-in-law popped by around dinner time. I don’t think he was originally planning to join us for a meal! However, it’s quite easy to throw on a couple of extra eggs and pieces of toast. My door is always open, but for some meals it’s definitely easier to “throw an extra potato in the pot”, as my mother would say.

Useful Weeds

Last year my mom planted dill in her garden (mammoth dill, I believe). She’d hoped for a reasonable yield, but the plants grew up tall and spindly and woody, and they dried out rather early in the season, much to her disappointment. This was especially surprising because last year was a really wet year, so it’s nigh on impossible that they weren’t watered enough. At the end of autumn, she ripped the desiccated stalks out of her garden and thought nothing more of it until this spring.

It appears that the dill self-seeded. Apparently, although it didn’t like the nicely fertilized and weeded soil of her garden, it really likes the cracks between her paving stone and between said stones and her garden border. Go figure. Dill is growing there, well, like a weed.

This seems to be a trend at Mom and Dad’s house. Ten years ago or so, a clump of chives started growing between the paving stones near the back yard — but never in the actual garden. This was especially surprising because Mom never planted any chives at all. Who knows where the seeds came from; dropped by a bird, perhaps? At first, Mom pulled the chives out like she would any other weed, but they always came back. She mowed them regularly when she did her lawn, but that didn’t cause much of a dent in their growth. Yet the chives didn’t spread to her garden or her lawn. They have self-propagated a bit along the paving stones closer to the fence, though, as you can see in the above photo. Eventually, Mom just gave up and started harvesting the chives for her own cooking; it’s a free crop that she doesn’t have to plant every year. Thing 1 and Thing 2 love those chives and grab a handful whenever we visit in the summer, leading to many car rides where the whole car reeks of onions.

I have a feeling this is what’s going to happen with the dill. This weed is a bit more aggressive than the chives, so Mom will weed it out of the garden so it doesn’t choke out her tomatoes (which she plans to plant next week). But the dill growing in the cracks can stay and supply her — and me — with all the dill we could possibly use over the summer. I actually harvested a few handfuls yesterday to make into bread machine dill bread. I needed to test out my new-to-me bread machine at any rate. The machine is smaller than my previous one, making 2lb loaves instead of 3lb, but it works a treat so I can’t exactly complain, seeing as it was free.

I think I need to make some kind of salmon dish with a creamy dill sauce, to take advantage of the herb being so nice and young and tender. Maybe next week.

Mushroom-Free Loco Moco

I’m still trying to get back into cooking proper meals, instead of fast food or whatever I can throw together in a pinch as I was during con crunch. Tonight I made Loco Moco, but my own version which basically uses ground beef instead of hamburger patties, but keeps the rest of the recipe more or less the same. I just find that it’s easier to eat that way — and, more importantly, that my kids make less of a mess if they don’t have to cut up the burger.

My brother-in-law was over for dinner, and he vehemently abhors mushrooms, so I had to make further changes to Guy Fieri’s recipe in order to make it palatable to everyone. Basically, I just skipped the mushrooms, and it was all good (if not as flavourful). I also wanted to make it a bit healthier by adding more veggies in the form of additional tomatoes and stalks of asparagus — it’s much easier to persuade my kids to eat their greens if they’re covered in sauce of some sort.

Look Ma, I Cooked!

What with ComicCon prep taking up 99% of my time, it seems like forever since I’ve been able to spend any time in the kitchen. Well, last night I actually was able to squeeze in a quick meal: nachos.

That’s Tostitos (yes, I know, not very authentic, but this whole dish isn’t, so never mind that) topped with ground beef, green onions, homemade salsa, chopped tomatoes, cheddar cheese, with a large dollop of sour cream on the side. Of course, this being me it had to be lactose-free cheese and sour cream, but it was tasty nonetheless.