Chili

I don't have a picture. Chili pretty much isn't the best looking dish but it is packed with so many flavours. I first browned local sirloin beef and local ground beef in a stew pot with some olive oil. I did this browning in several stages to make sure all the meat had a secure spot to some hot metal.

I chopped up carrot, celery, and onion along with several cloves of garlic from Trisha's grandfather's garden (this garlic is in the ground now for us next year in our back yard).

I made a fresh chili seasoning with paprika, ancho chili powder, cumin, coriander, dried hot chilis, dried mustard seed, oregano, pepper, and salt. Several of those were whole and toasted and then everything was ground up in a mortar and pestle.

The veggies were sweated out after the beef. They were removed and I de-glazed the pot with what was leftover in a hot chipotle salsa jar we got at the City Market last week and some water to clear the jar. The smell coming from the pot was amazing at this point with the salsa, vegetable, and browned beef aromas. Everything was added back in. Then, about 6 large tomatoes I had frozen from a local farm were blanched to remove the skins and added in. They dissolved and mixed in with everything else.

Simmered this with a couple bay leaves for quite awhile and then added dark chocolate, cocoa powder, and sugar. Trisha made some bread.

A great dish for a windy rainy Sunday.

Thanks for giving beef stew

This beef stew started yesterday evening. Actually, it started a few days ago when I made chicken stock that was used in the broth for this dish. I'll leave the chicken stock alone and just say later when I added it.

Beef, mostly shank with the bone and some various other stew-type cuts locally-raised. Browned, deeply after a salt & pepper seasoning. Then, your typical stock/broth/soup fixings were added in such as onion, celery, and carrot. Garlic, bay leaves, whole black peppercorns, rosemary, annato seeds, one dried thai-style chili pepper, the chicken stock, and a bit of salt all simmered with the beef for several hours. I then put that away for the night.

Then, this evening I heated this mixture back up, removed the carrots and beef. I then let the rest drain through a cheesecloth while pushing out as much liquid as possible. The carrots were mashed finely and then I started putting everything back together. Beef, the mashed carrots, fresh carrots (from the garden), turnip (from the garden), and waxy potatoes (from the garden), the broth, and then topped off with a bit of red wine and water. I let the new veggies cook halfway with the lid on and halfway with the lid off. The mashed carrots and having the lid off helped thicken the broth of this stew. Some fresh kosher salt and ground pepper were added a few minutes before serving. Trisha made some bread today as you can see.

Very, very satisfying meal.

Fork it Over

Visit [here] to see an article I just started contributing to this week. Every two weeks I'll be doing restaurant reviews with brufrog. Should be fun.

Sunday Eve

Chicken quarters, my favourite part of a chicken, were browned deeply in olive oil and its own fats. After flipping once I added a few crushed garlic cloves, sage, and thyme with a decent amount of butter. I then basted the chicken with the seasoned butter and left the garlic, sage, and thyme land where it did on the chicken. I then transferred the chicken to my oven at 300 degrees.

We made some risotto with bacon, wine, and chicken stock I made the day before.

The carrots were steamed and from my garden. They were finished in a bit of butter, salt and pepper, and some fresh basil from the garden.

I drained off some of the fat from the cast iron pan the chicken was cooked in. Removed the herbs but squeezed the soft garlic out of skin and crushed that with some chicken stock and let reduce for a sauce.

Sausage and Eggs

Sausage from Perry's at the City Market.

Scrambled eggs based upon this method by Gordon Ramsey.

Chowdah Part Deux and 1/2

I made chowder again tonight. This time I went to Billy's and got a pre-made chowder mix that had haddock, salmon, scallops, and shrimps. We also got a few clams to add to this chowder. If you look at one of my earlier blog postings you'll see I made a lobster chowder. This time I pretty much did the same thing but I used bacon instead of pancetta. Since the fish and seafood were uncooked I added them in a bit earlier and then served just after the clams opened. The highlights of this dish were that the potatoes, herbs (thyme and parsley), and onions were from my garden. The garlic was from Trisha's grandfather's garden in Barrie, Ontario. We'll have babies of this garlic starting next summer. I had a few bay leaves in there that were not from my garden. This time around I went stronger with the herbs and fresh ground black pepper during cooking and then another round of pepper right in the dish before serving. I never thought I liked chowder growing up but now it is turning into one of my comfort dishes. Be sure to check out here this week for my first appearance in Fork it Over with Craig Pinhey.

Pasta night, again

Pasta Carbonara was on the menu tonight. Hawk over at foodfunk gave me a starting point with this,

I just mix an egg yolk with a little cream and lots of fresh cracked black pepper in a pasta bowl and put that in the oven at 180 F while I prepare everything else. While the pasta is boiling, I saute two strips of bacon, chopped, in a fry pan. I'll pour off a bit of the fat, drain the pasta and toss it with the bacon. When it's blazing hot and soaking up that bacon flavour, I toss it into the now-just-warm cream mixture. Toss well and serve on a warm plate topped with more parmesan. The key is good quality bacon and lots of heat from fresh black pepper. I like this dish ferociously peppery. This is actually a dish I turn to often when I'm just cooking for myself - which I was last night.

Normally adding a generous amount of salt to the boiling water when cooking pasta is important. However, in this dish the bacon and parm adds quite a bit of saltiness so be very easy on the salt in the boiling water. I used two yolks because I was feeding two and used milk because I had no cream. If I had to guess I would probably say I used between 1/4 to 1/3 cups of milk. I also set my oven to 170, not 180 as the Hawk suggests.

Pho

Pho means soup in Vietnamese but in the West it means this Vietnamese-style soup dish made with an aromatic beef broth, noodles, beef, and herbs.

I based my Pho recipe on these three websites:

Wikipedia, Vietworldkitchen, and Food Network USA.

I can't really say much more other than I wasn't able to get any rock sugar so I used regular sugar, I pounded the raw beef thin between two pieces of plastic wrap, and used the beef off the bones sliced thin after it was in the fridge overnight.

Thai-style Curry

Thai curry is a dish I have not made in awhile but I was out shopping for ingredients to make Phở and I came up empty on a couple of items but was still in the mood for an Asian kick so I bought some stuff to make red curry.

There really isn't anything spectacular about this dish for its preparation other than a couple tricks but it does pack a wallop of flavours. Think heat, sweet, savoury, black licorice, citrus, ginger, and many other hints and flirtations of Asian flavours.

Jasmine rice is probably one of the easiest and quickest rices to make and before doing anything else some rice was put on the stove. After that, I got water boiling to cook a diced sweet potato. I think it is important to do this so that it is already cooked before going into the curry. If you cook the sweet potato right in the curry it'll release a lot of moisture and throw off the consistency of the dish.

I heated my wok up to a pretty decent medium high heat and added some vegetable oil and a small can of red curry paste. I stirred that into the oil and then added chicken. After the chicken was coated and partially cooked the onion and green pepper went into the wok. I kept that cooking while stirring constantly. I then added the coconut cream and finished off with some basil and green onion. The basil really showcases its anise-like flavours and aromas in this dish.

I prefer coconut cream over milk because it is thicker and richer. I often like to have coconut cream on hand that has been sitting in my pantry for a long time. When this happens the fat separates on top of the thinner liquid. I use some of that fat with the vegetable oil to get the dish started. When cooking this dish I picked up the coconut cream yesterday and the fat and water were mixed together, no big deal.

I had some Bird Label Riesling with this dish. There were some leftovers for today's lunch. This dish lends itself well for leftovers.

Pasta Night

Tonight I put together a quick pasta. I started off by sweating down one onion, adding some garlic, hot pepper flakes, and then a splash of dry vermouth. A few weeks ago I bought 10 lbs of local tomatoes for $10. I froze most of them whole and tonight I took a few out and dropped them in some boiling water to take off the skins. After that, I rough chopped the tomatoes and added them to the mix. After 10 or 15 minutes the sauce was ready. I mixed that with the pasta in a bowl, added toasted pine nuts, fresh basil, and topped with parm.

A tasty dinner from prep to clean in an hour

Stir fry in no time is pretty easy. For mine, I put some oil in a small sauce pan and let that infuse with garlic, ginger, star anise, and a hot pepper. While that was happening on low heat I started to cut up my veggies, pounded my meat flat with a tenderizer, mixed some corn starch with cold water, and then got out my sauces/flavourings. The items from left to right, front to back are: Si Racha hot sauce, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, fish sauce, 5 spice, sesame oil, and hoisin sauce. Some plain sugar and corn starch/water are off to the right.

Here is the oil infusing :High heat. It's a stir FRY , not a stir steam. I hit the wok with the tenderized beef and veggies at the same time on high heat and stirred like crazy, only to stop for this picture.
I didn't add all of those things from the counter until the very end and then serve with rice or noodles. My dish had rice.

Tonight we made some pizza from scratch. Awhile ago I made a big batch of pizza sauce which is pretty simple. The sauce is just canned whole tomatoes with some garlic, oregano, a dried chili, and a tad of salt blended. After using it that night I put the rest in a freezer bag to use in the future. The future was tonight. Trisha made the crust from scratch. In her words,

"I started by heating 3/4 cup of water to approximately 118 degrees, stirred in 2 teaspoons of sugar and then 1 tablespoon of traditional yeast. Let sit for approximately 10 minutes to proof - you will know when it is ready as there will be a layer of foam on top. Combine the liquid with 1 cup of flour, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I did this in my Kitchen Aid mixer, using the flat beater on the lowest speed until well combined. Add 1/2 cup more flour 1/4 cup at a time and switch from the flat beater to the dough hook when well combined. Add approximately 1/2 cup more flour (2 cups in total) and adjust your mixer to the next speed. Let the mixer knead the dough for you for 5 minutes or so, until it is nice and smooth. If it is sticking during this process, add a little extra flour. If you choose do this by hand, you've got at least a good 5 minutes of kneading ahead of you. After kneading, place the dough in a large bowl and coat with olive oil. Cover lightly with a tea towel and let rise for 1 to 2 hours".

This made for one of the strongest dough I've ever worked with. When the gluten is released this much it makes the dough easy to work with and it won't tear. The dough will also crisp up better in the oven this way too.

The pizza was topped with hot genoa salami and mozza.

Buffalo-Style Chicken Wings

Buffalo-style chicken wings are one of the many wing flavours available but it is probably the most popular and also the most bastardized type of wing you'll find. Many restaurants say they have buffalo wings on their menu but what they have is not even close to buffalo-style wings. I've ordered buffalo wings at one particular tavern in town and what I got was a baked wing in some sort of BBQ sauce with a lot of mustard flavour. Sure, some people may love that tavern's wings but they are not buffalo wings.

Tonight I made a small batch of wings for two. The chicken itself was not from a local farm but sometimes I just gotta have me some wings. At least they were not frozen from a box. I don't even know what those wings are.

Buffalo-style wings require three ingredients: Butter (some say margarine but stay away from margarine at all costs), vinegar (I use red wine but you can use white), and hot sauce (I use regular Frank's Red Hot). One thing I add to my sauce is some sugar to balance off the flavours. I combine all these ingredients in a small sauce pan in almost even amounts aside from sugar and vinegar. I use a bit less vinegar than the other ingredients and about half the amount of sugar. Find a mix that works best for you.

I rinse my wings well and pat really dry. I then toss them in a liberal amount of all-purpose flour and shake off the excess. I then deep fry them for anywhere between 10-15 minutes depending on the size of the wings. The wings should be golden brown when done. Take them out and put them on a cooling rack with a tea towel or paper towel underneath for about 30-40 seconds. Then, put them into a big mixing bowl and pour the sauce mixture over them. Toss around until coated and place them on a plate with some tongs if you don't want them swimming in sauce or just pour the whole bowl onto a plate if you like them messy. Enjoy.

Burgerz

I love a good burger. In fact, a burger is probably in my top 10 favourite foods. The mixture of ground meat (taking normally tough cuts of meat and grinding them makes them tender and mixes the tasty fats evenly throughout the meat), searing heat, seasoning, and toppings just works well with my mouth and tummy. Yesterday I picked up 12 ounces of medium ground beef from Dean's Meats in the City Market and made two patties. I cooked these on a cast iron griddle on my small charcoal grill. It's like a big Weber but smaller. I actually set it up on top of the grill of the Weber. I used the cast iron griddle to avoid any flare ups that would have occurred due to the beef being medium ground as it contains a decent amount of fat. Here are a couple pics of the tasty treat:

So, we took a visit to the Kingston Farmer's Market later than we should have on Saturday so Terry was out of a lot of stuff but still had some chickens we put on order a month or so back as he tries to only raise enough chickens as he has demand for.

So, we see these two birds and choose them:


One went into the freezer and the other kept fresh. I brined the bird today in cold water and about a cup of kosher salt for about 3 hours or so. 2-4 hours is pretty typical. Brining does not salt the bird but allows the salt water to change the structure of the cells inside the meat to be "hungry" for moisture so as the meat cooks it wants to take in moisture rather than get rid of it. Seriously, it makes for the most moist meat ever. Try it.





I put down a good layer or onion, carrots, celery, garlic, summer savoury, sage, thyme, and whole black peppercorns in the roasting pan. I then seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper, and dried thyme. I put that in the oven at 400 degrees for 25 minutes and then turned down to 275 for, oh, 4 more hours. Wait now, 4.5 hours for a 5-7 pound bird!!! You got to be kidding me, right? No, low and slow will cook a brined bird the best. Seriously, try it. The high heat at the beginning gets the vegetables going plus starts to brown the skin and render the fat. After that, the meat needs low heat to cook properly. How many times have you had really elastic chicken that is tough to eat and doesn't want to come off the bone? If you have, it means that the high heat made the meat contract too quickly and toughened it. Low heat allows it to cook gently and will give you a much better tasting chicken.



Some local beans and potatoes finished off this dish along with some tasty beer and gravy.

And then, not to waste anything I took the roasting pan vegetables and some fresh ones and made a stock. This will be useful in ways I can not think of yet but having chicken stock available at all times is a must in my kitchen.


That picture was taken before adding the water.

It's midnight on the 29th. I'll be going to bed soon and waking up after that. At that time, I will be roasting a fresh chicken that was raised naturally in the Cole's Island area. I've had chickens from this farmer, Cedar Lane Farm, over the last few years. His chickens are amazingly flavourful and satisfying.

Meat, including chicken, has more beneficial things in them when they're raised naturally. Common sense would dictate that an animal that eats all kinds of good things will transfer those good things to the animal that eats them (for example, me) compared to an animal fed one type of food (grains like corn that are grown on infertile land only useful due to loads of industrial fertilizers).

Tell me, would you like to buy regular chicken with little flavour and eat a couple pounds of it at $1.29/lb or get a reasonably-sized (a few ounces) piece of chicken that fulfills you in flavour and also in nutrients for $2.99/lb? To help you answer, the latter, chickens on these farms are fed a diverse diet of mixed with what the animal gets naturally while pecking away on the ground for hours on end while being free and open. The former animal is locked up in a cage, fed an all-grain diet that is typically only one type of grain as mentioned above.

On top of the practices used to make each kind of meat it is important to mind a few other things. How far did the food come from? How did the animal live while alive? Oh geez, so many other things.

Time to go to bed.

Lobstah Chowdah

Today's dinner was some lobster chowder inspired by Michael Smith's Chef at Home. I started in a pot with pancetta (still the same slice from last entry's dish) and I rendered that down with a tiny bit of butter and olive oil to start things off. I then added onion, garlic, and celery and sweated these vegetables for several minutes. I then added in two bay leaves, a couple sprigs of summer savoury and thyme from the patio. I added fresh cream and milk from Cedar Lane Farm Authentic Foods. The cow these products came from is grass-fed and naturally raised and the products are not pasteurized. Two small potatoes were diced up and thrown in as well. Some juice from the canned lobster and pepper were added. At the very end I added the lobster meat to just heat up and topped with some parsley from the patio and some fresh pepper. It was a simple dish and I've never known myself to be a chowder eater but inspired by Chef at Home I knew I could put something together that was tasty.

Rainy day + trip to the market =

I went to the market today and picked up a fresh Nova Scotia trout, green and yellow beans, pancetta, and a few odds and ends. What resulted is the above meal.

I forgot we were making risotto and had the potatoes already in the oven; big deal if I put two starches in the same dish. Both were amazingly delicious. A few "rules" were broken and don't be fooled, this blog is not about forcing silly rules upon you. Sure, there are some cooking fundamentals that should act as a guide when eating but food should also be enjoyable and if it feels good, do it.

The risotto was started with pancetta, olive oil, and butter, and then in went the rice, red onion and chili. Canadian Gewürztraminer was then added and then the rice was cooked in some chicken stock I had previously frozen from another time. At the end, it was topped with some parsley from my patio and sliced green onion.

The potatoes were sliced in half, tossed in olive oil, a tiny bit of red wine vinegar, summer savoury from the patio, and salt and pepper. Those were roasted off for about 30 minutes.

The green and yellow beans were steamed and finished with butter and seasoned with salt and pepper.

The trout was sloppily filleted, seasoned with salt and pepper, and cooked in a cast iron pan that started off with pancetta, olive oil, butter, and a bit of the red onion and chili. Skin side down almost the whole time and flipped to give some flavour to the top of the fish. Oh yeah, there was a mango salsa that was made with mango, red onion, chili, cilantro from the patio, lime juice, and a bit of salt.

I had no idea what was for dinner tonight until that trip to the market. If you're ever feeling like dinner is pointless just take a trip to a market whether it be a permanent one like we have in Saint John, a farmer's market or your regular supermarket. There is surely something there that can inspire you to cook up something tasty for you and your friends and family.

Introduction

Food on the Offense is a take on the title In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. This book, put simply, defends food in its truest forms against the ongoing threats of food made by nutritionalism.

In this blog I want to write about the offensive position I am taking personally to show that real food is easier than you think to eat. It will never be as easy as putting a Pizza Pop in the microwave and who wants to poke that thing when it comes out anyway? From the commercials, they seem to make quite the mess. Real food, in comparison, can make a mess but with some fundamentals, planning, and help from family and friends you can, in the words of Jamie Oliver, "cook your way to the good life".

The postings you'll see here will contain pictures, "recipes", articles from the internet*, excerts from books, and anything I think will entertain and inspire you to put real food on the offense against all of those convenience foods out there claiming to make your life easier while proclaiming their healthy benefits.

*I've been collecting articles from a few larger news sites on the internet that claim to have the answer for the reader based upon the newest study on what is good or bad for you. Really, all these do is confuse the reader who may have read an article the day before claiming the exact opposite.