spring may have sprung

what a difference the weather makes! yesterday was my best day at the market yet...hooray and thanks!

people seemed to be in a much better mood and excited to be out of the house, enjoying the sun and exploring the market. so today is the first full day of spring and it certainly feels like it. time to plan the garden...

this year i'm attempting to grow as much of my own produce as possible. in the restaurants i worked for in ottawa, the cooks would always grow a garden to supply the restaurant with as many fresh veggies as possible. i also had an apartment (with a yard of course) garden where i grew 27 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, chillies, bell peppers and herbs to make my bbq sauces and salsas from scratch. i know the growing conditions are quite different in prospect village than in the ottawa valley but i am still going to try my best.

however, i may have bitten off a little more than i can chew...

this is my selection of seeds thus far. i'm also planning on hitting up the seedy saturday heirloom seed sale out in spryfield on april 2nd. i've heard there will be a lady there who is incredibly passionate about potatoes which i know grow well here, and i'd also like some chiogga beets, red carrots and some lettuces...i think my eyes may be bigger than my gardening ability.

i bought the four packets in the bottom row from a nice lady at the market on saturday and i also got these from her - 

forsythia.

my windowsill garden is coming along. herbs are so expensive so i'm going to try and grow them all myself.

so far i have oregano, rosemary and thyme but i need some mint, dill and basil to brighten up my summertime cooking.

this is micro arugula, it grows super fast and adds a sharp, peppery flavour to food and i like it. i'd like to transplant a bunch outside to grow for salads and keep some small indoors for garnish and last minute touches.

i had these little salads for sale yesterday. i bought the vine tomatoes from elmridge - they don't grow them but act as a distributor for the man who does (don't worry they're still local). the cucumber i bought at noggins and the greens are from hutten family farm. they don't sell at the seaport market but still have an awesome table at the historic market. their veggies all looked fantastic and they had a really wide selection - i didn't even know what a couple of the root veggies were! the greens are baby mache, arugula and a microgreen blend (like mesclun). add a red wine vinaigrette and it was a great bright and acidic salad to accompany the richness of the quiche it was served with.

as the summer months approach i'm definitely shifting into lighter fare. in the summer i like to eat a lot of sandwiches (well i like those all of the time actually), bright salads, bbq and lots of simply grilled veggies, fish and chicken. i'm used to farmers walking in the back door and being totally stoked on their veggies of the day so the menu might change a little to showcase the most awesome product. that's how i want to cook this summer - fly by the seat of my pants, walk out the back door and see what i can find. in march this all sounds great but i might need to hire a full time gardener for the summer months...

speaking of lighter fare - this is the vegan vegetable stew i made this week. it is loaded up with tons of veggies: multi-coloured carrots, fingerling potatoes, kale, swiss chard, zucchini, white turnips, parsnips, celery.... the list goes on and on and i think it's the new 'healthiest thing i ever made'. people sometimes freak out thinking vegan = bland. load it up with veggies and fresh herbs and it's rad and healthy.

but i can't forget the bacon either...

this is a slab of double smoked roselane farm bacon and it is good. i used it for my quiche lorraine yesterday along with some foxhill cheese aged gouda and caramelized onions. they sold out - i'll try to make some more for next week, but my prep list is slightly out of control!

this week was also crazy for cupcakes. i had three flavours with blueberry, raspberry and mint icing. along with massive cookies, lemon tarts, brownies, macaroons.

red velvet was the most popular and was sold out my about 2. i think it will be my signature flavour - especially with raspberry, cream cheese frosting.

this week i also made a great discovery - selwood green has a juicer and they can supply me with beet juice. red velvet normally relies on food colouring but lots of people are allergic, it's fake and organic beet juice does the same thing!

i froze it in ice cube portions and i'm going to just pop a cube into each batch - this is a bit of an experiment but i think/hope it'll work...

weekly menu to come - definitely fish pie for sunday (peter from the fish shop has some sustainable sea bass and arctic char coming in on friday) but i'm still trying to decide what else to make - in addition to another batch of the chicken, leek, broccoli and bacon pie, quiche lorraine, salt cod fish cakes, sausage and pepper baked penne, cream of broccoli soup, roasted red pepper and sweet potato soup, and 3 flavours of bbq sauce...

oopsy

i totally forgot that i also have the frozen roast pork dinner with mashed potatoes (they have a hint of parsnip & celery root), gravy, and honey & herb roasted noggins carrots. the pork is a berkshire/tamworth cross from getaway farm and it puts other pork to shame! decisions, decisions...

this week's menu

so i know i'm missing st. patrick's day, but i'm doing an irish inspired menu for tomorrow. i had planned on a fish pie for tomorrow but then i remembered - i have a massive beef brisket corning for homemade corned beef and cabbage. march is definitely flying by and i lost track of the date. i also have a nice slab of roselane farm double smoked bacon that i will be turning into quiche lorraine for sunday.

mains

corned beef & cabbage, getaway farm beef brisket, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, celery root, turnips, mustard & herbs with irish soda bread (serves 2 - fresh for friday)  $15

shepherd's pie, getawway farm beef, homemade bbq sauce, peas, corn and cheddar mash with parsnips and celery root (fresh for friday) small $7.50 large $15

quiche lorraine with roselane farm double smoked bacon, caramelized onions and foxhill cheese (fresh for sunday)  $12

vegetarian quiche with oven roasted tomatoes, spinach and rancher acres goat cheese (fresh for sunday) $12

both flavours of quiche with be accompanied by a light salad of the first of the spring greens with a red wine vinaigrette and the quiche are baked in 9 inch pie plates so it's enough to feed four.

frozen

chicken, leek, broccoli, and bacon pies with a puff pastry lid and homemade chicken stock $7.50

fish cakes and beans (i just made a new batch of beans last night) - serves 2  $12

lobster mac & cheese, leek bechamel, roasted tomatoes, foxhill cheese curds  $20

sausage and pepper penne, shani's farm sausages, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers, swiss chard and foxhill cheese curds  $7.50

acadian rappi pie, potatoes, shani's farm chicken, sweet williams smoked turkey, caramelized onions, crisp salt pork  $12

soups, stews, chowder

$5 each

vegan vegetable stew (i think this one will be perfect for 'the ladies that lunch')

beet, parsnip & pear

curried butternut squash

root vegetable puree

potato, leek and bacon (only 1 left)

'french' onion with guinness beer and foxhill cheese

beef & barley (it's more of a stew than a soup this time!)

seafood chowder with mussels, clams, scallops and halibut

chunky beef chili

desserts

dark chocolate cupcakes with minty frosting

vanilla cupcakes with raspberry cream cheese frosting

lemon meringue tartlets

chocolate, coconut macaroons

snickers brownies

oatmeal, white chocolate and cranberry GIANT cookies

i may also have the time to rock out a few surprise treats but that all depends on how quickly i work this afternoon...also i'll be supplying wrap so d with some more sweets on saturday as well - perhaps some red velvet cupcakes...

cloudy with a chance of meatballs

yesterday was a great day at the market. 

it was so nice that there were actually people there and the sun was shining - hopefully signs of things to come. so fyi the sunday market hours have changed, they are now 10-5 (i missed the whole 10 part in the last newsletter and showed up at 7, a mere 3 hours before the market opened...oh dear). it will be great for next weekend though and those two extra hours in bed.

today is a little dreary though and i've decided to have a spaghetti & meatball meal for lunch. i've been meaning to blog about this dish for awhile. for valentine's day i wanted to make a romantic meal and was having a hard time deciding what to do. a lot of the things i wanted to do were either too extravagant or would be completely ruined during the reheating process at home. and then this image came to mind:

and i settled on spaghetti and meatballs. it's simple, cute, holds up well, is so satisfying and i like cartoons. i bought all of the beef from getaway farm, 'parmesran' cheese from foxhill (it's called that because parmesan is now being treated like wine with an appelation controllee), and for the binder i made homemade breadcrumbs from some leftover garlic and herb focaccia.

i used my trusty ice cream scooper to portion all of the meatballs. for things like this it's very important to have uniform size to ensure uniform cooking.

there ended up being a 'few' of them and i think they look pretty cool all lined up. when i make meatballs i cook them under the broiler. it's a great way to develop great 'brown' flavour without stressing over them breaking apart in the pan and having grease splatter all over your arm and you can bang out way more in the same amount of time.

also an important tidbit - if you're going to cook them again in the sauce, don't cook them all the way through. let the cooking process finish in the sauce and the flavours will mingle and you don't wind up with tough, dry, overcooked meatballs - because they really are the star of the show!

but you can't forget the pasta either.

i think it looks pretty cool too. that giant colander was a great investment. if you're in the market for some kitchen equipment check out the cash & carry on chebucto road. i love exploring there and they recently cleared out two aisles and filled them with restaurant equipment - massive bowls, colanders, containers... i bought a massive potato masher there this week and it was only $6!

the pasta i use is catelli smart. i have tried and tried to find a nice whole wheat pasta and they are all nice in theory but in practise it's a whole nother story. this one tastes like regular but it has loads of fibre so you don't have to feel so guilty because the carbs aren't entirely empty.

you can tell i'm pretty into food when i think even the canola oil in the squirt bottle looks interesting...

i may have gotten a little carried away with the portion size (which i sometimes do) and this is what the final product looked like, originally i had planned on them being individual portions, what was i thinking?

the red plaid curtain in the background seems quite fitting for this one too... mine just went into the oven for lunch.

continuing on the italian theme, i catered a birthday dinner party on wednesday night and i guess i was in an italian kinda mood as each course had some italian undertones. for a little starter i made some mushroom and goat cheese triangles. the filling is made with shallots, garlic, cremini mushrooms, herbs and goat cheese all pureed in the food processor. then it is chilled and stuffed inside little bundles of filo dough. i guess they went over alright because the birthday girl has ordered 30 of them for pickup on friday! i don't have any photos but i'll document the entire process this week when i make a new batch.

filo can seem a little daunting but it's actually pretty quick, easy and extra tasty crispy. the trick is to touch it with a delicate hand, work quickly and use butter. the same technique can be used to make any sort of appetizer bundle - spanakopita, smoked salmon mousse, sundried tomato, olive and caper... the possibilities are endless and work particularly well with any filling that you might find inside a ravioli.

for the first course, it was seared digby scallops over risotto with butternut squash, zucchini and corn, topped with arugula.

again the portion was probably a bit large but i always worry about people not having enough. also a proper risotto is supposed to spread on the plate, not stand up in a neat little pile, so it looks larger than it was. the key is to start with a nice stock. please, please, please don't use the store bought stuff. it is so full of sodium and things i can't pronounce that it will totally throw off the natural and simple flavours of a risotto. maybe i should start selling containers of frozen stock along with my soups...

risotto also needs to be stirred quite consistently as it cooks - incorporating one ladle of stock at a time. when i used to teach cooking classes i would always tell people that they were burning calories and getting an upper body workout before dinner so it all came out in the wash!

second course was a pan-seared and herb roasted shani's farm chicken breast, over gnocchi alfredo with shiitake and oyster mushrooms, baby spinach and red wine vinegar roasted shallots (a little acidity to cut through the richness). it was also topped with pea tendrils from river view herbs to jam some more green veggies into the meal.

i had made a gnocchi dish like this to accompany some braised beef brisket a few weeks back and the guest of honour really enjoyed it, so i thought i would make some more for her birthday. i also add some blue cheese to the gnocchi - it's based on a classic italian dish called gnocchi con gorgonzola. i never liked blue cheese growing up - in fact my brother and i would be chased around the house by 'blue cheese breath' - but i had this dish at a restaurant in montreal during university and since then i have liked blue cheese. it works really well with the potato gnocchi and meaty mushrooms - i bought some fantabulous blue cheese from sweet williams on saturday (along with a delectable smoked turkey leg) and it is soooo good.

at this point i think most of the guests were full to the brim but still had a lemon & almond tart to work through. i made the italian meringue on site and piped it and blowtorched it in front of some of the guests and i think it went over ok - dinner and a show!

i made it a little different than i do for the market. underneath the lemon curd i baked a thin layer of almond cream and then just a thin layer of lemon curd and served it accompanied by a thick swoosh of raspberry coulis and some fresh berries and mint for colour. since it was thin and light, i think it was the best way to finish a rich meal.

last week was busy, i'm sold out of 3 flavours of soup, 2 types of bbq sauce, shepherd's pie, and baked beans. i had better get to work. oh also, my friend works for the halifax refugee clinic and they are having a bake sale tomorrow at the dal sub and i'll be dropping off dark chocolate cupcakes with raspberry cream cheese frosting (the leftover raspberry coulis from the dinner party has inspired my new favourite concoction) so check it out and get your sugar on for a good cause!

saturday

if you're at the market tomorrow (oh actually later today...) and in need of a sweet treat. pop by wrap so d. darren was nice enough to let me fill his display case with my sweets. it's not a full saturday stand but it's certainly rad to get my name out there and exposed to the die-hard saturday crowd.

tomorrow i'll have snickers brownies; oatmeal, white chocolate and cranberry cookies; carrot cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting; and red velvet cupcakes with raspberry cream cheese frosting.

this is also my motivation to finally make it to the market on saturday. i'm super excited to visit the annapolis seeds booth - heirloom seed purveyors. time to plan the garden. the first spinach of the year showed up at noggins today and spring is in the air!

i like green things

so after my beef extravaganza of last weekend - this week i'm going green. 

this is the filling for the first instalment in my pie phase. 

it's shani's farm free range chicken mixed with loads of leeks, celery, broccoli and bacon. the gravy is with homemade chicken stock and fresh herbs. i used puff pastry for the lid - but i made lemon, pepper & herb biscuits too if you crave more starch. oh and back to the green - i made a side dish of shallots, peas, mustard greens, lemon and tarragon.

i'm still working out prices and i'd like to combine things to offer a 'full meal deal', but my brain is currently fried so all of the details will be on my brand new blackboard tomorrow.

today i also braised the chicken that's going into the rappi pies for sunday. so quick review, rappi pie = layers of grated potatoes hydrated with chicken stock, chicken meat, caramelized onions and salt pork. it also equals radical and my favourite thing to eat ever. i'll definitely make up personal and family-size options and some roasted noggins beets on the side.

i also catered a birthday party last night - these are the lemon tarts they had for dessert.

i've had a busy week. yesterday, a frozen food delivery, followed by a dinner party for eleven, then five types of sweets for a catered lunch today and prepping the rest of the day to get ready for the market tomorrow, pwef... and i still have time to watch american idol (nerd). just so you know, i'm definitely interested in small caterings, deliveries, etc. right now it's just me but as soon as i can afford to hire someone maybe i can rock out some bigger events too, if there's the demand...

ok back to sweets, tomorrow i will have carrot and red velvet cupcakes - both with cream cheese frosting, 'snickers' brownies (they're extra chocolatey this week, i tweaked the recipe), lemon meringue tarts of course, oatmeal, white chocolate and cranberry cookies, and chocolate coconut macaroons, oh and dark chocolate truffles with cayenne and cinnamon. i'm testing out a blondie recipe too so on sunday i'll have butterscotch blondies as well - as long as they aren't a complete disaster.

i also have tons of frozen soups, chowder and chili, lobster mac & cheese, fishcakes & beans, roast pork dinners, spaghetti & meatballs, sausage & pepper penne, and general tao's chicken. 

ok i think that's it, i think...

flaking out

this week i reorganized and discovered that i have about a bajillion aluminum pie plates. so i've decided that for the next few weeks i'm going to make lots of meals in pie form to use them up before i buy some new packaging.

since i don't do much on mondays, i've had plenty of time to think of new meals, so i'm planning a braised chicken and leek pie for this week with a side of lemony peas, next week fish pie with steamed greens, and then some bubble and squeak with market sausages. i guess the drizzle outside has put me in a british frame of mind. i might throw in a steak and kidney pie, or rabbit pie, or more rappi pie (since there is a certain gentleman who requests them each week) or enchilada lasagna or bacon pie. oh and i almost forgot, i'm corning my own brisket to make corned beef and cabbage for st. patty's season - but that's a whole nother story...

so back to pies - what would a pie be without a great crust? nuthin! i had never made a single pie until i went to cooking school. i was always terrified of pastry and messing it up and overworking the dough and having it fall apart and having it crack... there are lots of things that could go wrong but they don't have to. my current pie dough recipe is pretty fool proof and i'm about to share it (i can't believe i'm about to do this...):

flaky pie dough

3 c flour

1 tsp salt

1 c butter

1 egg

2 tsp acid (vinegar, lemon...)

ice water

first off, always make sure your ingredients are cold when working with pastry. pinch the butter into the flour and salt. make sure to work quickly and don't work the butter too much or else it will melt and make for a tough dough. you could combine everything with a pastry cutter or a food processor - but in my opinion your hands are your best kitchen tools.

then whisk up the wet ingredients (add enough water to make 2/3 c liquid) and dump them over the dry.

you can see the little clumps in the mixture. the clumps are the butter. ok science lesson: butter contains water, when water gets hot it releases steam, when the steam gets trapped inside pastry it creates little air pockets, little pockets within pastry create flakiness. therefore, butter clumps make for great pastry.

it's also at this point i like to switch to a fork - cut down on the mess a little. stir everything together until the wet is absorbed and then turn the whole lot out onto a clean work surface.

i know, i know, it looks a little dry but it's fine, don't be alarmed. then i start to treat the dough like it's puff pastry (i've had some people at market ask me if it is puff). so puff pastry, aka millefeuille, aka super-flaky pastry, is a pain to make but the technique has several applications. it involves rolling and turning the dough to build the layers. my pal charlotte (chefette at the whalesbone in ott) taught me this trick - i think she learned it from how her grandma made biscuits - otherwise i would never have thought to apply puff principles anywhere else.

roll the dough out, and use a bench scraper to fold it in 3's, like a letter, and turn it 45 degrees.

it sounds confusing but with a visual it's pretty easy.

continue to roll and turn and that super dry looking dough will miraculously come together.

then divide it - i quadruple the recipe and each quarter makes about 15 tarts.

and check out the layers - how could it not be flaky with layers like that built right in? it's also fitting that the lemons for the curd are in the background!

wrap it and chill it. i normally freeze it right away. it's probably because i'm used to rushing things in restaurants and also because sometimes i tend to forget things in the fridge...

then roll it out, blind bake it, fill it and done.

this was my little after dinner snack tonight - notice the crumbs... success!

i also use the same technique for biscuits and it seems to work pretty well.

sometimes my biscuits are less than stellar, but these were my best ones yet. i was so stoked!

on saturday i had a great day cooking, somedays everything sucks and somedays the stars align and everything works out perfectly and i can really enjoy cooking. i hope everyone who has tried my food actually likes it too and it's not just me!

here are some other things i like:

this is my massive convection oven and once i get it hooked up i just know i'll be able to produce so much more in way less time. 

these are my knives. not only do i love them, but i love the fact that they are stuck to the wall!

these are some of my cookbooks - please disregard the shopaholics on the top shelf...

and i love the way the light comes into my kitchen - much better than a basement of a restaurant somewhere.

and these are three of my favourite tools. the lime green peeler is an ikea find. super cheap but it has lasted me much longer and works much better than any expensive peeler i've had before. the yellow juicer is a miraculous invention for someone who makes as much lemon curd as i do - so efficient. the ice cream scoop is the best. my kitchen used to be the general store in prospect and i'm not entirely sure but i think this scoop was used back in the day to scoop ice cream cones. now 1 scoop equals a cupcake or a macaroon and 2 scoops equals a GIANT cookie or a fish cake.

ok time to plan for the caterings, deliveries and market days coming up.