Urban Vancouver

Another day. Another meal with ham. It was 10 pounds after all. This time I made a ham and broccoli pasta with fresh orecchetti pasta. I made the pasta using the Cook's Illustrated recipe of a couple of cups of flour and a handful of eggs. Very simple really when done in the food processor. Once I had the pasta I rolled it into logs and cut little coins of pasta in my hand that I the shaped into the orecchetti. Boiled in water for about six minutes, it took a little longer than I thought it would, but was pretty good. The chewiness of fresh pasta was great for the shape. The rest of the pasta was a could handful or so of the ham diced up, a couple of heads of broccoli cut into bite sized pieces, garlic, a little onion, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. All tossed together with a lot of grated Parmesan cheese and a little of the pasta cooking water, it was pretty good for leftovers.

I bought a ham a couple of days ago. A 10-pound spiral-cut honey-baked ham. We had people over so, I wanted a roast. But I also wanted leftovers, so I bought the 10-pound ham. It was pretty good to have, but the leftovers were even better. This morning we had ham biscuits. I made the cheddar biscuits my Mum made when I was a kid. I had planned to make cheddar and black pepper biscuits like they have in the coffee shop just around the corner from where I live, but I forgot to put the black pepper in them. The ham was fried to heat it through and add a little caramelization. They were pretty damn good. I ate several and still have a couple for breakfast tomorrow.

So we've reached the end of the binge eating season called the holidays. For me this year it was made a little worse/better with my first Christmas in Georgia. So much food, oh so good. But after cooking up a whole mess of lobsters last night and today Daphne made Hoppin' John for good luck in 2009. After 2008 though, I think we'll be hard pressed to improve. It was a pretty good year. I finished it off with a little pecan pie since we were following Southern traditions today with the rice and beans and the collard greens. But now, I think I'm done with all the sweets and rich decadent foods that I've been eating they last three weeks. I've got to train for Whistler.

We're back home. Back in the cold. With an empty fridge. So, being the former boy scout that I am and ever prepared, we broke into the frozen food for just such emergencies. This is the spaghetti with bolognese sauce that was made a couple of weeks ago when we made lasagna. I loved that this was in the refrigerator. It froze very well and once defrosted tasted like it was made yesterday. It as built on a base of garlic, onion, carrot and celery. To that a pinch of red pepper flakes, dried herbs and salt and pepper. Then ground meat, followed by a bit of tomato paste and several jars of strained tomatoes. Dead simple, followed by time simmering on the stove.

So before heading back into the cold of the North, we had vareniki. For a couple of years now, I've listened to Daphne talk about vareniki. How they were like perogi only different. So, I finally had a chance to try them after Christmas.  And, well, they are sort of like perogi, but different. Much larger, but similar. These dumplings were stuffed with a combination of cottage cheese and ricotta, then boiled and fried before they were covered with a cream gravy and left to sit overnight. I probably should also mention that they were fried in bacon fat, so basically this was the really just a delivery method for bacon fat and cream, a delicious combination in any culture.

So I guess tradition is that you wait a year before you eat the top of your wedding cake, but well, we couldn't wait. Plus, the box it was in was taking up way too much place in Daphne's Mother's freezer. So, while we were in Cordele, Ga., we took it out and cracked into it. Delicious. Nearly as good as it was the day that we were married. I was a little surprised how well it kept. I guess when you encase a cake in butter-cream icing it stays pretty moist. It didn't dry out or anything. To make the occasion complete though, we also ate up a little of the barbecue that she had frozen. It was also just as good as the day we had it in November. It was a whole little wedding party here in Cordele in December.

It seems kind of appropriate that my 1,000th post is dinner at Daphne Lodge. We had a Boxing Day dinner there. The novelty still hasn't worn off for me. This time we tried something a little different and just had the catfish. The past several times I went we had lots of appetizers and I've never really been able to finish my main course. Also the last couple of times I had the fried shrimp, so this time I opted for the catfish. It was very good of course and the hush puppies were very good. Better than the Bill Spoon's ones for sure.

Daphne's Mother made these for breakfast Christmas morning. They called them sausage balls. I think I'm going to take to calling them breakfast cookies. They were mix of bulk sausage that was browned, cheddar cheese and a biscuit mixture. Rolled into a ball and then baked. The spread out a bit like a cookie. Anyway, they were delicious. All the flavours of breakfast in a single bit. A little bit of biscuit, a little bit of sausage and cheese. Really fantastic. They almost made up for my lack of potato pancakes with Chinese sausage that my Mum makes every year at Christmas for breakfast.

Merry Christmas blog readers. I'm in Georgia cooking Christmas dinner for the new in-laws today, so I might not have time to blog. But I thought I would post up a Christmas message to you all and a picture of my shortbread on one of the Christmas plates we received for our wedding. I've written about the shortbread before and even posted the recipe, so I won't go on about it too much other than that it is an integral part of the holidays for me.

It is Christmas Eve, so I thought I would post about some of the Christmas cookies that I made this year. You might have already read about the French Laundry Shortbread that I made a couple of weeks ago. Technically I didn't really make these cookies. I baked them, but they are Daphne's. I thought I would blog about them though anyway because they were really good. They are sort of like gingerbread, but not. A wider range of spices and molasses. The key though that makes them unlike any other cookie that I've had is the lard. Yes, lard. not butter. Not shortening. Lard. I'm not quite sure what it does compared with other fats, but these cookies are pretty great. When I rolled them, I made then slightly smaller than the one-inch balls that the recipe required, but I like the small size. Perfect with my morning espresso.

So here it is. The next round in our fried chicken experiment. As you might recall, we fried some chicken in the summer to take to the concerts in the park. And while it was pretty damn good, I thought we could work on it some more. Daphne, though being the more restrained of the two of us, said I wasn't allowed to fry more chicken the very next day. And that if I wanted to avoid becoming 300 pounds, I probably shouldn't even fry it the following week. So here we are several months later and frying chicken again. This time I got to use my big cast-iron chicken fryer that Daphne's grandmother bought for my birthday. It is huge and deep with a lid. Perfect for frying chicken. As last time, the chicken was soaked in buttermilk and Tabasco. Last time I used a whole bottle and I thought it needed more. This time I used half a Costco-sized bottle. About 175 mL of Tabasco. This time you could taste the Tabasco, but it still wasn't spicy. I think next time I'm going with the whole bottle.

This time we also experimented with the crust a little. Using the Cook's Illustrated as a guide we made a mixture of seasoned buttermilk, Tabasco, egg and a little baking soda to dip the chicken in between flourings. It made for a heavier coating than last time that I didn't mind, but Daphne just didn't like. She went so far as to peel the coating off and just eat the chicken. Fortunately we only did half the chicken with the new coating and the other half was done with just heavily seasoned flour like in the summer. It resulted in a much better coating that was crunchy and not so batter like. I think this might be the first time the Cook's Illustrated technique has let me down.

To have with the chicken, I made the oven fries from the Cook's Illustrated. I made them a couple of weeks ago with spectacular success. The two keys to the oven fries that I had not done in the past I think are a 10-minute soak in hot tap water and the first five minutes of baking are done on a pan covered tightly in aluminum foil. I don't know what the 10-minute soak in hot tap water does, but it is magical. It is something to do with the starches. Anyway, the results are fantastic. They were brilliant with the chicken. Anyway, it was a pretty indulgent dinner. So much fried chicken. Next time I think I'll use the whole bottle of Tabasco and maybe a slightly longer soaking time and we'll keep the flouring process simple. Just heavily seasoned flour.

We went for dinner at L'Oree du Bois on the weekend. I'd never been before. Daphne had talked about it for years. Nestled in Gatineau Park, it was always a bit of a hike to get to, so there were always excuses why we didn't got. But with the holidays approaching a trip was organized to go. It was described to me as sort of a French Canadian version of Daphne Lodge. For those of you who made the trip to the wedding, you now know what that means. It is a short drive out of town in a lodge type building. Warm, friendly.  Family run. They even had a little bar area like what Daphne's parents call the Well, as well as separate private rooms for parties.

Dinner began with a platter of little bits of duck. You have to love the duck shaped platter. On the platter was a little pot of duck rillettes, foie gras, duck pate, smoked duck and duck gizzard. It was kind of crazy. To pick a favourite thing off this plater, I'm not sure I could. The rillettes, foie gras and pate were all fantastic, but I think it is a close call between the gizzard and the smoked duck breast. It was a heavy smoke that kind of took you to the campfire, while the gizzard was a great surprise. All delicious. All had with a glass of their hard cider, it was fantastic. I loved having the hard cider instead of a really sweet wine. Following the hard cider, we had a bottle of Domaine de Bellivière, a white wine from France.

For my starter I opted to have the mushrooms and escargot fricassee. It came with a rich cream sauce and just a little bit of puff pastry. I loved the dish. Heavy and rich. It was pretty intense. A little like the mushroom and escargot dish at Vittoria Trattoria, only better.

I had the braised rabbit with blueberry and black peppercorn for my main course. I've been thinking about cooking rabbit for a couple of weeks now. In Vancouver, I never saw rabbit in the butcher shops, but I have seen it in several shops here and really want to give it a try. So when I saw it on the menu, I thought I would give it a go. I don't want to say it taste like chicken, but it sort of did. Dark meat, not white meat to be sure. But a little like chicken thighs. Braised in a beautiful way and covered in blueberry sauce, it was oh so good. It was a little on the salty side, but I loved it. To drink we had the Osoyoos Larose, a Bordeaux style red wine. It was fantastic. I loved having the B.C. wine out here in Quebec.

Dessert was a tasting platter designed for us by the kitchen. Starting at the 12 o'clock position is a pistachio egg nog shot. Friggin brilliant, but still only the second best thing on the plate. Loved it. To the right, a marscapone cheese made by the restaurant with. Also great. Rich. Creamy. The little cherry and raspberry they put on the dish with the cheese were a great play against the richness of the cheese. After that the chocolate mouse. What can I say about chocolate mousse that hasn't already been said about everything else on the plate. At the bottom of the plate were three chocolates that were made in house. Two were plain dark chocolate, the third filled with a delicious caramel. And finally, what I thought was the best thing on the plate. A maple ice cream on a bed of what they called maple cream. It was easily my favourite dessert on the plate. Paired with it was a bottle of Domaine de la Ferriere. It was sort of like port, but not as heavy. Sweet, but not sticky like port can be. Lovely with the chocolate. Dinner at L'Oree du Bois was fantastic. I can't believe I had never been. It was an excellent meal and little excursion out to the restaurant. If you're looking for a nice meal and something a little different. Make the trip. It really isn't all that far.

L'Oree du Bois. 15 chemin Kingsmere. Chelsea, Que. 819-827-0332.

So I was pretty excited this morning to check on the bread that had been rising for just about 18 hours. It didn't look like much. Sort of like a flour and water version of the surface of the moon. Not all that appealing. I didn't even take a picture of it. What you see here is what it looked like after I turned the sticky mass out of the bowl on to a floured surface and shaped it into a ball and returned it to the bowl on a tea towel dusted with a mixture of cornmeal and flour to rise to another two hours. Yes, two more hours. You have to be a patient chef to make this bread.

After the two hours were up it went into the Le Creuset dutch oven that had been heating in a seriously hot oven for half an hour. The lid went on and the whole thing went back into the very hot over for 30 minutes before the lid came off and it baked another 15 minutes. When the lid came off, I was pretty gobsmacked. It looked like a beautiful artisan loaf of bread. The sort that I will sheepishly admit to paying more for than one should for a loaf of bread. I as stunned. But the proof the the recipe really would be in the eating.

I cut off a piece from one end to discover the bread had a crust near perfection. Not quite so thin as a baguette, but not thick and heavy as some other breads I've had. It was crisp. I could not ask for more. The crumb was excellent. As a note, I used the ordinary Robin Hood All-purpose flour. But the taste. Everything that one expects from a loaf of artisan bread. And it came out of my oven. For the cost of three cups of flour, a little bit of yeast and salt. That's it. If you want to sell me bread now, it had better be damn good bread because this is what I can do at home. And if you can't top this, I'm not buying your bread. I'm not saying it was the world's greatest bread. I have a very clear memory of a baguette I had in Paris and another that I bought still warm from Terra Breads on Granville Island. But this was far and away the best homemade bread I have ever had. And so friggin easy.

I'm making No-Knead Bread. After reading about Amateur Gourmet's experience, it sounded just too easy to be true. I had to put it to the test. So here is my dough, just before I covered it in plastic wrap and set it to rise in my somewhat warm kitchen. There it will sit for the next 18 hours. So check back then and see if it actually worked. I can't wait.

Here's my lunch from earlier this week. Chicken Parmigiana and fettuccine.

For the Fettuccine:

10 ounces flour
Three eggs.

I combined the flour and eggs in my food processor and then rolled it out using a hand-cranked pasta roller after leaving to rest for about an hour. Dead easy. If you have food processor and a pasta roller, I can't urge you strongly enough to make your own pasta. I'm not buying fresh pasta again. This was too easy.

For the Chicken:

Four chicken breasts, pounded flat
Flour, seasoned generously with salt and pepper.
Tomato sauce
Mozzarella
Parmesan cheese

I dusted the chicken with the flour and then fried them to get a little colour. Then put a few spoonfuls of tomato sauce on the base of a baking dish and lay the chicken on top of it. Then I poured the remaining sauce on top of the the chicken and put a little cheese on top of the sauce and baked it for about an hour.

We broke into the gingerbread house this week. One of Daphne's colleagues sent it to us for Christmas. I'm really hit and miss with gingerbread. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I'm less than crazy about it. IU'm happy to report though that this one is terrific. The gingerbread is soft, nicely flavoured. I don't like my gingerbread too heavily spiced and this one struck a pretty good balance. It is huge though. I hope we can finish it before it goes stale.

I had lunch this week at a place called Meadow's Lunch. It's a little diner on Preston, just around the corner from a friend's office. I'd never been before, but Ross assured me an authentic diner experience. I wasn't disappointed. This place is the genuine thing. The waitresses know the regulars by name and the guy running the grill seemed like he was in constant motion banging out plates of tuna melts, all-day breakfast and burgers. I opted for a club sandwich platter. I think a good way to judge a diner is its breakfast and its club sandwich. This was pretty good. Chicken instead of turkey, but real chicken, not sliced deli meat. The fries were near perfection on a plate. Golden and crispy. All said, Meadow's Lunch was terrific. It doesn't look like much, but that's not what diners are about. They are about a quick tasty lunch for a reasonable price and Meadow's lunch certainly delivers on that front.
Meadow's Lunch. 455 Preston St. Ottawa. 613-567-5214.

What chili would be complete without cornbread. The last time I made cornbread, Daphne derisively dismissed it as Yankee cornbread. It was apparently too sweet. Too cake like. So, this time I consulted the Cook's Illustrated and found they did indeed have two recipes. A Southern cornbread and a Northern cornbread. I opted for the former. I only had a nine-inch cast iron pan, not the eight-inch pan asked for the in the recipe, but I forged on ahead. Mixing he batter I was a little unsure as it was quite a thin mixture. Practically liquid. It had no flour and for an instant I thought I might have to add in a little, but resisted. Anyway, that's how it turned out. It was pretty good. What made it really special was the bacon fat that was melted in the pan and then whisked into the batter just before it was baked. It made it unlike any other cornbread I have had. Delicious. Daphne figures if we had better cornmeal, we would have had a great cornbread, but since we didn't it was just OK. But she saw potential. Apparently her grandmother's recipe is similar, but includes a small amount of flour. Maybe we'll give that a try next time.

Instead of a roast this week, we cooked chili. I say we because I cooked the Cook's Illustrated meat chili or what I've taken to calling the Man Chili as Daphne made the vegetable chili from the Julee Rosso New Basics Cookbook or what I'm calling the girl chili. I'm reluctant to call it a chili cook-off as I find it difficult to believe that a chili without meat will ever be better than a good one with meat. But it was fun to have them side by side. I'd never made chili before, so I figured that the Cook's Illustrated version would be a great way to start. They'd done the work already to figure out the best recipe, so I thought I would just use theirs. It was incredibly easy and it was simmering away on the stove before I knew it. It was reminiscent of Josh's chili, which was one of the best I've ever had. But Josh used 44 pound of meat in his enormous pot including three pounds of bacon. I think next time I might start the recipe with a little bacon, just enough to render a little fat and flavour the whole thing. Although you don't see it in the picture, I ate it dressed with a little cheddar cheese, chopped cilantro, green onion, sour cream and a squeeze of lime. I loved what the cilantro and squeeze of lime brought to the party. It brightened up the rich meat chili.

Just so you don't think we're crazy to make two big pots of chili just for the two of us, Daphne made the vegetable chili because she had a pot-luck Christmas part to go to this week and wanted to make it ahead so the flavours would have time to come together. We still had a couple of bowls to test for quality control. The vegetable chili was also quite good, for chili without meat that is. It had plenty of fresh dill in it that I thought made it quite lovely. Daphne had made the recipe before, but without the dill. The trick with a vegetable chili I think is making sure that you don't overcook the vegetables. Leave them so they still have a bit of a bite to them. We did an OK job of that. Maybe a little past the point of perfection, but still not the mush that some vegetable chilies I've had. The flavours were similar to the meat chili, well minus the meat. It was still pretty good though. But how did it compare to the meat chili. Well, it was better, no question. The meat chili had meat in it, how could it not be better.

No trip to Montreal is complete without a trip to pick up some bagels. After a little confusion about directions we made our way to St-Viateur Bagel. I love a great Montreal bagel. I sometimes buy the bagels at Kettleman's here in Ottawa, but they just aren't the same. I've come to the conclusion that there is something about the chewiness of the real Montreal bagels from St-Viateur that make the big difference.