Category: Cooking

Summer Supper

Yesterday’s supper was very simple and was also completely based on what I found on sale at the grocery store over the weekend. A decent steak was on sale for less than the going rate for ground beef, so we had steak. Corn on the cob was only $0.15 per ear, so we had corn. Peaches and strawberries are in season and I had a few too many in my fridge, so I made pie for dessert.

Since I was busy making the pies indoors, my husband cooked the steaks (with a sprinkle of Montreal steak spice) and the corn (still in its husk) on the barbecue. The steak was melt-in-your-mouth tender, and the corn, while not the sweetest, was still tasty. In retrospect, the steaks were a little large. Okay, they were huge. I cut off about a third of mine to give to Thing 1, and my husband shared his with Thing 2, and we still were stuffed before we got to the corn. That’s okay, we had the corn as a night snack, along with some pie.

If you’re wondering what the brown lumps are at the end of my corn cobs, they are corn holders shaped like beavers eating corn. I thought that they were cute in the store, but they aren’t dishwasher safe so I wasn’t going to buy them. Surprisingly, it was my husband who fell in love with them and insisted that we bring them home (on my condition that he can hand-wash them if he likes them so much).

The pie was peach and strawberry with streusel topping, which was still warm and gooey from the oven when we cut into it. As usual, I used the Purity Pastry crust from page 73 of the Purity Cookbook (2001 edition), which remains my favourite. For the filling, I used the fresh fruit pie formula on page 228 of The Canadian Living Cookbook by Carol Ferguson (1987), and the streusel topping recipe on page 226. I cut the sugar back by a third, since I like the flavour of my pies to have a stronger emphasis on the the fruit flavour instead of the sweetness. To be honest, what I’d really wanted to make was plain peach streusel pie, as it is recommended in the meal planning section of the book as part of a typical Ontario country-style feast. However, I didn’t quite have enough peaches, and I did have some strawberries that needed eating, so I improvised.

Fish Sandwich & Side Salad

Dinner last night was a fresh and summery breaded cod sandwich served with a spinach and goat cheese salad. I’d love to say that this was due to a fantastic advanced planning, but it was mostly because I had picked up both the fish and the salad ingredients at 50% off because they needed to be eaten soon. Also, I’d been feeling like a fast food fish burger, but I thought I could manage something better at home.

The cod was dipped in egg, then in a combination of dried dill and panko (Japanese bread crumbs), then lightly fried in a bit of olive oil. The bread was the lightly toasted basic white bread on page 14 of The Complete Guide to Bread Machine Baking from Better Homes and Gardens (1999). For a bit of additional flavour, I spread President’s Choice tartar lightly on one half of the bread, and for crunch I added some chopped romaine lettuce. This made for a lovely light sandwich that nonetheless was quite filling.

The salad is based on one that I love to buy pre-made at the grocery store (when it’s on sale, of course), which is really easy to make at home. The base is baby spinach, which it topped with quartered strawberries, drained canned mandarin slices (the kind in pear juice, not syrup), sliced cucumbers, and blanched, sliced almonds. My favourite cheese for this salad is Woolwich Dairy Soft Unripened Goat Cheese Crumbles, which are much milder and creamier than most other goat cheeses I’ve tried. As a bonus, goat cheese doesn’t seem to upset my stomach, so yay for dairy I can actually eat!

Thai Chicken Coconut Curry

Last night I wanted to make a healthy and easy meal, so I went back to the Thai Coconut Curry Recipe and worked with what I had in the fridge and pantry. I used Blue Dragon Thai Red Curry Paste again, since I still had about 2/3 of a jar left in the fridge. As protein, I used chicken thighs, which I had bought in quantity a few days before due to a fantastic deal at the grocery store. For the veggies I used yellow zucchini, green zucchini, and garlic scapes, all of which are in season locally. Like with my Indian coconut curry (which in retrospect this version of the dish looks an awful lot like), I was running short on time, so I cooked the veggies on the stove. I also served it on rice.

The dish was very tasty, and my whole family ate it, which satisfies my most stringent criteria when it comes to cooking. Also, anything with that many veggies incorporated into it is better for both the health and the digestion. However, I think if I want a more attractively-coloured final product, I’ll have to make the time to roast the veggies. They seem to keep their original colour much better when roasted. Also, chicken and rice aren’t nearly as visually appealing on a plate as shrimp and egg noodles. Even so, this meal remains very versatile and super-easy to make, so I’ll probably keep making it regularly — with infinite variations, of course.

Roadside Stands

I’ll admit it, I have a hard time passing roadside fruit and veggie stands without stopping in to see what is on offer.


Signs advertising tomatoes & strawberries on Route 366 in Québec, just north of Gatineau Park.


Brisebois Fruits & Légumes (Brisebois Fruits & Vegetables), at the intersection of Route 366/Route Principale E & Chemin Brisebois (Sainte-Cécile-de-Masham, Québec).

Recently I visited Brisebois Fruits & Vegetables, which is located just north of Gatineau Park. It’s easy spotted from the main road due to its generous signage, orange roof, and, oh right, the two smaller-than-life moose statues out front. The stand carries local produce like strawberries, carrots, and garlic scapes, as well as imports like lemons and oranges.


Multicoloured carrots purchased at Brisebois Fruits & Légumes.

I purchased multicoloured carrots at this stand, as well as a pint of blueberries and a half-pint of cherry tomatoes. The carrots are the only things that made it home; my kids can eat their own body-weight in berries when so inclined, I’m sure.


Sign for Orleans Fruit Farm

I stop by the Orleans Fruit Farm on a regular basis, as well as occasionally visiting their U-pick fields for strawberries, raspberries, and apples when they are in season.


Orleans Fruit Farm fruit and veggie stand at 1399 St Joseph Blvd, Orléans, Ontario

This farm stand does a brisk business, located as they are off a main road leading from downtown to a decent-sized suburb. It’s a simple thing for residents to pop in and pick up something for dinner on their way home from work. The stand is always staffed with helpful, friendly employees and, as a bonus, they take debit as well as cash.


Under the Orleans Fruit Farm red-striped tent.


Summer squash.

These odd-shaped summer squash were grouped with the zucchini, and a sign proclaimed that they taste just like regular zucchini, but were shaped better for stuffing. I had to buy them since I’ve tried anything that looks like this.


Steamed multicoloured carrots and sauteed summer squash with curry powder.

And what do you know, the sign was totally right. They’re just differently-shaped zucchini. I want to try stuffing them at some point, though. The yellow one, especially, would plate fantastically.

Gifts of Food

I love to give food as gifts. I figure that everyone has to eat. Even those people it’s really hard to buy/make gifts for, those people who seem to have everything they need or want (or have expensive tastes way out of my budget), food is something that they constantly need to purchase. It is, after all, a consumable.

So I give food as gifts for birthdays, Christmas, and other special occasions. I try to keep the recipients’ tastes and food sensitivities/allergies in mind, of course, although sometimes I know I don’t quite get it right (but that can happen with any kind of gift, really). I always label all of my homemade food with every ingredient I’ve used, just in case I’ve missed or forgotten something. I like giving hard-to-find items that may require a trip to a specialty store, or foods sold as part of fundraisers. When it comes to home cooking, casseroles and baked goods are traditional. Additionally, I especially like giving home-canned goods, because I can do large batches when the food is in season and dole it out over the rest of the year. Canned goods are especially good when I don’t know when the recipient will want to actually eat the food, since shelf-stable canned goods last a year or more. There’s always a lot of food involved in holidays anyway, so I can’t always assume that a gift will be consumed immediately; to this end, foods that freeze well are also a great option.


A recent gift of food: Mikado milk chocolate biscuit sticks, Maple and Oatmeal Loaf (Bread Machine: How to Prepare and Bake the Perfect Loaf (Jennie Shapter, 2002), page 95), and Girl Guide cookies (chocolate/vanilla mix). Not packaged very prettily, I know, but it had to survive a ride on the back of my bike.

I also like to give food to people I care about who are going through a rough time. A new baby in the home (a joyous occasion, but a time-consuming and stressful time as well), a death of a loved one, illness, marital troubles… In this case it’s less of a matter of celebration, and more a matter of trying to help out. When you’re in the middle of personal difficulties, the last thing on your mind is eating properly. You have neither time nor inclination to cook, so you rely on whatever is cheapest and easiest, which isn’t sustainable in the long run. I want to help out, but in so many cases there’s not much I can really do to fix the problem. I feel helpless, and I hate to see someone I care about hurting, so I fall back on making food — something I know I can help with. I want to show that I care, but I don’t want to intrude, and popping by to drop off a casserole or a loaf of bread only takes a few minutes.

Where did this mindset come from? Is it regional? Familial? Personal? I’m not sure. I’m from Maritime stock, and I’m told this is very common on the East Coast (also the Southern USA, but I don’t have any ties there). I grew up around potluck gatherings of every kind, that’s for sure. I’m pretty sure my paternal grandmother was of the traditional “bring food around” mindset; possibly it’s part of the whole “hostess gift” tradition? Whatever the reason, what I’m trying to do with a gift of food is show that I care, and that I want to make your life easier, if only for one meal. And hey, if I end up giving you a dish that you absolutely despise, I was trying, okay?

At The Lake

I spent the weekend at the lake again — but a different lake this time. My parents have rented a cottage for the summer, and I’m taking the kids up whenever I can.


The view from the dock.

Of course, every trip to a cottage comes with hearty breakfasts… Okay, well, brunches… Okay, sometimes lunches. It all depends on how early the kids get me up, and how lazy I’m feeling when I first get out of bed. A beautiful day at a cottage often makes me want to sit on the deck or the dock with my morning beverage of choice and just relax.


Cottage breakfast with French toast, bacon, and fruit salad (asian pear, cherries, and banana).

Of course, once I’ve had something to eat (and okay, sometimes before), it’s time to jump in the lake. This particular lake is really clear and actually quite warm for a Canadian lake, which means that you still don’t want to stay in there all day, but it’s not breathtaking to jump into.


Thing 1 practicing her cannonball.

My kids would spend all day in the water if their lips didn’t turn blue, which happens even in a heated pool, eventually. Their favourite part is launching themselves bodily off of the dock


I think Thing 2 doing her “starfish” jump.

Also, I’m pretty sure that Thing 2 believes that she can fly.

IKEA Market Food

I headed out to IKEA the other day to pick up some cheap picture frames. Of course, I bought the wrong size and now I have to make a return trip, but that’s another story. As I often do, I browsed the “market” on the way out for new foods I have yet to try, and I was not disappointed.

The first thing I found that was new to me was Brödmix Flerkorn multigrain bread baking mix. I had previously made their lemon muffin mix and chocolate muffin mix, which are packaged similarly in a milk-carton-like container. Like the muffins, the bread mix is a “just add water” type, but this time the instructions specify warm water (to activate the yeast). This mix is vegetarian/vegan, which makes sense as it’s easier to keep foods without eggs, dairy, or milk shelf stable.

The bread mix turned into a lovely, heavy loaf that pairs well with cheese, sliced meats, and eggs. The bread is very dense as it is filled with sunflower seeds and contains rye flour and barley malt in addition to wheat flour. This was honestly the easiest bread I have ever baked: just add water, shake, pour into a greased pan, allow to rise, and bake. No kneading! Even if you’ve never baked bread before in your life, you’d be able to make this stuff.

The second item I picked up was Kalles Kaviar, which is a creamed smoked fish roe from Sweden. I’ve seen this in the fridge at IKEA many times, but I’d never gotten around to trying it until now. I like all kinds of fish roe, so I figured that I would like this. And overall it was pretty good, with that lightly fishy taste that I’ve come to expect from fish roe… But it was also really, really salty. Possibly too salty for me.

Not to be deterred by a first experience, I Googled to find the typical way that Kalles is eaten. Apparently the most common way to eat it is with dark rye bread with seeds (which I oh-so-conveniently had just made) and eggs for breakfast. Now, I made my eggs sunny side up instead of soft-boiling them, but I figured the flavour would be pretty similar. And do you know what, just a little bit of the kaviar with a mouthful of toast and eggs is a great combination. It’s still awfully salty, though, so if you’re not used to it, I recommend eating it only in small quantities.

Bread and Soup

I wasn’t feeling super-adventurous yesterday, so I stuck with a few recipes that I knew generally go well. First was a poppy seed loaf (Bread Machine: How to Prepare and Bake the Perfect Loaf (Jennie Shapter, 2002), page 138). Much to my surprise, my husband, who generally doesn’t cook much, actually is getting into this whole breadmaker thing; he whipped up this loaf a couple of times before I tried the recipe myself. This loaf is light and fluffy, but the seeds add a lovely crunch, and the crust is golden and crispy even when cooked on the “light crust” setting.

One thing we’ve learned about cooking from this book is that my bread machine (the Black & Decker All-In-One Deluxe Horizontal Breadmaker) is really a medium-sized machine according to this book, while I had thought it was a large. A medium-sized machine is defined as ones that “make loaves using 450-500g/1lb 2oz/4-4 1/2 cups of flour” (page 7, Bread Machine). Now, you see, I would have known that if I’d been paying enough attention, but for some reason I assumed my machine had a larger capacity than it does, and I directed my husband to make the largest version of the white bread recipe (page 66) for his first try at breadmaker baking. Well, while the bread was rising it expanded so much that it pushed the lid open and the dough started oozing out of the bread machine. My husband punched the dough down and cut some of it out, and that seemed to be the solution until the start of the baking cycle, when the dough pushed the lid open again once the temperature increased. At that point we were worried that the dough might continue to grow and slide down the side of the pan and onto the heating element, possibly resulting in a fire. So my husband rescued the dough and I prepped two small loaf pans, and we finished up the bread in the oven. Because the bread had started to cook a little in the breadmaker, the consistency was a little off, but it was still edible (and a darn sight better than some store-bought bread I have tried). Since this fun episode, we’ve been using the recipe for a medium-sized bread machine and we have yet to have any problems.

Yesterday I also went back to my old standby of udon noodle soup for dinner, which always uses the same technique but ends up slightly different every time. I used homemade chicken broth seasoned with a dash of soy sauce and a tiny bit of dashi granules. The toppings were soft-boiled egg, precooked shrimp, raw enoki mushrooms, steamed bok choy, steamed carrots, nori, seasoned capelin caviar, and raw chopped green onions. The rest of my family also had fish balls in their soup, but I’m not a huge fan.

Indian Coconut Curry

Last night I decided to make coconut curry again, but with a more Indian flavour. The one that I made previously was more of a Thai dish (although certainly not an authentic one), mostly because I used Blue Dragon Thai Red Curry Paste. This time I used Pataks Mild Curry Paste; the company specializes in flavours originating in India.

As is probably evident from the picture, I made a few more changes, based mostly on what was in my fridge and pantry. I replaced the carrots with mushrooms, I switched the shrimp for chopped chicken breast, and I served the dish over rice instead of with noodles. Also notably, I ran out of time to roast the vegetables in the oven (which takes about an hour), so I cooked them up in a frying pan on the stove with the chicken once it was sealed. I also needed to boil down the sauce a bit once I added the curry paste and the light coconut milk because the veggies were more steamed than anything else and hence added a lot of moisture.

So I made a tonne of changes, but the dish still turned out successfully. This all goes to show how much you can mess with this recipe and still have great results! My kids ate all the food on their plates and then came back for seconds, which is how I rate dinner success in our house. Also, they ate all of their veggies without complaining, which is a huge win. Thank you, Brothers Green Eats, for introducing me to this dish!