Living on Wine and Food

Taking a break

2010-10-27T10:21:00.003-04:00

Life has been pretty manic lately and I'm having less and less time to cook, read, blog, basically do the things I really enjoy. I'm taking a blogging break (I know some of you may be thinking that I don't blog all that much anyway, so a break isn't anything new). But it's been a slippery slope down into insanely busy, no time for anything land. I hope to return to the normal land of the living soon.

Thank you for reading,
Susan

p.s. Notice that I didn't say there is no time for drinking. There is always time for wine :)

Apple Picking and Baking

2010-10-12T16:00:00.003-04:00

The Husband and I were apple picking over the weekend. It's a fall tradition for us and he always appreciates the amount of baked goods that apple picking allows us to have in the house. What he doesn't appreciate is the amount of crazy parents and children that we have to contend with in order to get these fresh apples so we are in and out of the orchard pretty quickly.

The first of the baking experiments was homemade applesauce. I save my jam jars so that I can make the applesauce look more authentic. What's great about this recipe is that you just put your apples (six) into a pot with butter, cinnamon, brandy, brown sugar and just let it cook down. Any leftover bigger chunks can be mashed with a potato masher.

Next was the apple pie. I'd never actually made apple pie before and I'm not interested in making pastry from scratch so my good pal Tenderflake helped me out with this project. Other than peeling and slicing the apples, this was a really easy recipe... just add brown sugar, cinnamon, brandy, lemon juice and butter. Egg wash the top of the pie to make it shiny and you've got this:

Ordinary products into extraordinary

2010-09-08T21:42:00.004-04:00

I am all about quick, delicious and sometimes healthy meals. I work and go to the gym every day and I also don't want to eat at 9 p.m. every evening. Because of this, i've had to learn how to take normal convenient products from the grocery and turn them into amazing dishes with an almost 100% homemade feel.

Last night's dinner? Whole wheat rotini in alfredo sauce served with breaded pork tenderloin medallions. Sounds kind of boring when you just write it out like that... like I could have just poured sauce over noodles and shake n baked a pork loin. That's not what I did.

My alfredo sauce from a jar (Classico is my fave brand) became uber alfredo sauce when I crushed two cloves of garlic in it, then added a cup of freshly grated cheddar and parmesan cheese. I also added a bit of fresh cracked pepper.

My pork tenderloin? That was marinated in a piri piri sauce (PC brand bottle), honey and Franks Red Hot (I maybe do put that sh*t on everything), and then I breaded the outside of the meat with breadcrumbs and parmesan. Bake on 400 for 30 or so minutes to an internal temperature of 160ish and you're all good. THIS was delicious.

Not much I could do with whole wheat pasta but it's healthy so it gets a bye.

This entire dinner including the side salad I tossed together with balsamic took about 35 minutes (55 with the marinade but I don't count marinade time as I can do other things... like shower after the gym).

Changing the ordinary jarred sauces, plain jane products into special food is easy... just experiment. I haven't gone wrong yet. It also helps to arrange things really nicely on the plate. Just because a meal was quick to put together, doesn't mean you have to be thoughtless with how you arrange it. Make it pretty and it feels like it took much longer to prepare.

And if I had wine last night, I would have likely had a sauv blanc or something really fresh and crisp to cut the fat in the sauce/spice/richness of the pork. I took the night off though... which I always regret but my liver thanks me for.

Boneless Ribs... yes, boneless

2010-09-08T21:32:00.003-04:00

I have become an Eat, Shrink and Be Merry addict. I PVR it and watch reruns at least twice a week. I take the recipes, modify them and try them out all the time. The fact that these women are making my favorite foods healthier makes me so happy and so hungry.

Here is my latest venture into the ES and BM world: Boneless Ribs

Now the actual recipe is right here and don't freak, although it looks long, it's really quite simple: http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Main/Pork/recipe.html?dishID=8421

I made it even more simple with the following:

Ingredients

1 pork tenderloin

1 cup one of your fave BBQ sauces

1 cup one of your other fave BBQ sauces

(I used honey smoked and maple smoked)

Directions

Put pork tenderloin between two large pieces of saran wrap and beat the f--k out of it until flat so it looks like actual rips. I used a rolling pin as my beater.

Marinade pork for as long as you have... I believe I had an hour.

Grill 5-6 minutes a side marinating the hell out of with the BBQ mixture the whole time. Take off heat, cover for a few minutes, then cut into strips that look like ribs. Slather again with BBQ.

I served with a baked potatoes (course salt and pepper rubbed on the outside) and corn on the cob. I salivate just thinking about this.

If you're in the mood, you can serve with a red wine as well... I would do an Aussie shiraz, a Primitivo, a Cali Zinfandel or whatever you like... Any wine that says it could be a BBQ wine is fine.

And P.S. don't let anyone tell you that ribs can't be boneless. Do you know what your comeback is? Regular ribs, although delicious, will make you fat. My boneless ribs are delicious and keep you thin. No contest.

30 day challenge... over

2010-08-17T21:49:00.005-04:00

The 30 pounds in 30 day challenge is over and I lost about five pounds. I know that's a far cry from 30, but most of my clothing is too big now and my skinny jeans fit. That tells me that I lost five pounds but my body composition has drastically changed. I'm happy. So that's that.

I'm keeping on with the diet and exercise, but being a bit more lenient (like tonight I had a small piece of ice cream cake after dinner courtesy of a new friend who makes homemade ice cream cakes).

I've been cooking a lot lately and recently mastered my version of Huevos Rancheros. I know this might not be a foreign concept, but I hadn't had it until recently at my local haunt, Dr. Generosity. We were there for brunch and normally, I would have the eggs benny because I think hollindaise sauce is like edible gold... but decided to try the HR. It came and was a huge tortilla, chili, poached eggs, salsa, sour cream, cheese and definitely one of my top five meals ever.

The Husband looked over at this and had immediate food envy. I knew that I had to recreate this. I whipped up a pot of my Mom's chili over the weekend. The recipe is a huge mess which I can't even begin to put down on paper, much less post on this blog, but it's meaty chili goodness.

So this is how I put it together:

My Huevos Rancheros

1. place a warm tortilla on plate

2. put about a cup/cup and a half of chili on the plate

3. shred a bit of cheese over the hot chili

4. add some hot sauce if you like it spicy

5. place one egg over easy on top of the chili (you could do two depending on how big the plate is)

6. shred more cheese on the egg

7. more sprinkles of hot sauce

8. sour cream on the side

It's decadent and delicious and if I'd had fresh tortilla chips I probably would have put them on the side as well.

Try it out if you like this sort of thing... It is comfort food to the core.

Chicken Pot Pie

2010-08-08T16:31:00.007-04:00

I was watching Eat, Shrink and Be Merry this week (I PVR it twice a week because this is one of my fave cooking shows) and they were remaking chicken pot pie. If you don't know the premise of the show, they take really fatty dishes and make them into healthy, amazingly tasty options.

This got me craving chicken pot pie... and not the frozen store bought version that could probably give me a heart attack simply by ingesting, I was craving the good stuff... like I saw on TV.

Hence, I modified the Eat, Shrink and Be Merry recipe and had the most amazing chicken pot pie EVER. If you like chicken pot pie, have a go at this.

Semi-Healthy Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients: Filling

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 cup diced onions (I actually pureed them because I hate hate hate onion chunks)

2 cloves minced garlic

2 cups frozen mixed veg, mine were peas, carrots, green beans and corn

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 3/4 cups chicken broth

1 cup cream-style corn

1 cup 2% evaporated milk

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup packed grated light Swiss cheese

1 large rotisserie chicken, meat cut into chunks (light and dark meat)--I actually got the "herb roasted chicken" flavour... look for this one as it's awesome. I used my hands to strip the chicken too... you don't have to, but I found it effective.

Biscuit Topping

1 sheet puff pastry, rolled out and measured to more than cover your baking dish... mind looked very rustic

Directions: Filling

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Place baking dish (I used one larger, probably a quart or two, dish and one smaller, 2 cup dish) baking sheet lined with foil and set aside.

To make filling, heat olive oil over medium-high heat in large non-stick pot. Add onions and garlic. Cook about 3 minutes. Stir in mixed veg and thyme. Cook 1 more minute. Add broth and corn and let mixture simmer, uncovered, for 2 minutes.

In a small bowl, whisk together evaporated milk and flour until smooth. Add to pot. Cook and stir until mixture thickens (and don't worry, it will thicken, just give it a few). Remove from heat. Add cheese and stir until cheese melts. Stir in cut-up chicken.

Fill baking dishes with warm chicken mixture and top with pre-measured puff pastry. Brush tops of pastry with a weeee bit of melted butter. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes, until filling bubbles and pastry tops are puffed up a golden brown. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving because this is super hot.

For wine, I had a reserve Syrah from Chile that I've been wanting to try... the peppery-ness of the Syrah was really nice with the herbed flavour of the pie, and the weight of the pie felt equitable with the body of the wine.

Less than one week left in the weight loss challenge

2010-08-05T09:22:00.004-04:00

So what have I learned so far?

1. Eating healthy and fresh foods makes you crave eating more healthy and fresh foods.

2. Exercise begets more exercise begets more exercise and so on and so on

3. When the brown rice package says 1/4 cup rice = 170 calories, they mean uncooked and were just being idiotic by not putting that warning on the package. 1/4 cup brown rice cooked is actually like 60 cals. Seriously, who puts the nutritional value for uncooked food on the package? Like we really eat uncooked rice?

4. My body actually doesn't need a lot of food to feel great. I've cut portion sizes in half in the case of most of my meals and I feel satisfied.

5. Eating healthy does not mean eating boring. My meals are full of flavour, using fresh and healthy ingredients. I'm still practicing the "ritual" of eating... presentation, sitting down and enjoying every bite of my smaller portion. In some ways, I feel that my mealtimes are more luxurious now then before.

6. I can indulge every so often in wine, beer, vodka, etc... eat steak, chips, potatoes, cookies and STILL lose weight. Don't misunderstand, I won't lose much by doing this twice a week, but with discipline and lots of exercise during the weekdays, I can indulge on the weekends.

7. Wine, steak, cookies, etc all taste incredible when you consume them slowly, thinking about what you're putting in your body and the different flavours that make up the food.

That's it so far.

I've lost just over five pounds as of today but my body composition has drastically changed. My pants from four weeks ago no longer fit the way they used too and some don't fit at all. I'm in my skinny jeans (which happen to be skinny jeans) and have decided that even though this weight loss challenge ends in just under a week, I'm keeping on it. I feel as if I've made a sustainable life change. No, I won't be doing two/day workouts four days a week into perpetuity, but can I handle it at least two days a week with an additional four other days for regular workouts? Absolutely.

Three days into week three

2010-07-28T13:01:00.003-04:00

Last week I lost .5 pounds. I know reporting that was overdue but life has been really busy and I was hesitant to even mention that was all that I lost. However, I knew something like that was going to happen considering the debaucherous (is that even a word??) weekend I had with my family and let's face it, if I can eat, drink and be merry, yet still lose weight, I'm golden.

It's day three into week three of this challenge and I've been to the gym five times already (as per normal) and also been for a bike ride. Eating habits are similar, consuming 1400-1600 cals per day and I like I've fallen into a food and workout groove. My body feels great, albeit sore from all the workouts and mentally, I feel fantastic. My clothing fits better, I have way more muscle definition than when I started (hello abs... nice to be seeing more of you than before), and I actually like the food I'm eating. Granted, I miss cookies and cupcakes A LOT but I can usually calm that craving by shoving some fruit in my mouth.

I'll share one salad recipe with you all... because it's my newest experiment and I love it so much. I've been combining "spring mix" salad (because it's my favorite mix...thank you Dole), green apples, blackberries, craisins (less than 1/8th of a cup because they are loaded with calories but a little goes a long way here), a wee bit of gorgonzola crumbled (like a tbsp) and low fat raspberry viniagrette. It's incredible. Like truly delicious.

In additon to the food/workouts, I'm also on day four of Whole Body Cleanse by Enzymatic Therapy (my Mum work's there and I used to work there... best natural supplement products on the market hands down). I'm hoping the Cleanse will help shed a few extra pounds and at the very least, clean out any excess toxins that may be hindering the optimal performance of my body. For my fellow Canadians, I know that Noah's Natural Foods in Toronto carries this product and I highly recommend.

So that's my update.

Now for the bad news. This weekend is a long weekend where I live and I'll be headed to a friends cottage for golfing and relaxation all weekend. As with last weekend, I have every intention of working out, playing lots of golf and eating semi healthy. The reality of the situation is that I may drink my fair share. So we'll see how things go, I'm going to try and stick to white wine and vodka as they are the lowest in cals. And let's face it, I love both of those.

Sunday of week 2...weight loss challenge

2010-07-25T19:09:00.003-04:00

Ok... so my last post said I was going to try to eat healthy and workout on my mini vacation. Well, as is oft quoted, "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

I didn't workout unless you call walking for hours while shopping a workout... I don't.

I didn't even remotely eat healthy. It was almost impossible. I had burgers, fries, pasta, birthday cake, cheese curds, eggs benedict (because you can't order the fruit cup at a five star breakfast joint, i'm sorry, not possible). And all that stuff only scratches the surface plus doesn't account for my wine, beer, vodka consumption.

But I'm home now and was back in the gym the afternoon despite catching a flight at the crack of dawn and needing a nap desperately.

Miraculously, I think I might still be down a half a pound on the week. We'll see tomorrow.

To try to make up for the lack of control on the weekends (which next weekend will be no different as we're headed out of town visiting friends again), I've started a body cleanse and am going to do that in addition to my two/day workouts this week. The cleanse is for 14 days and I'm hoping it will counter any of the bad food habits i've built up... plus it will completely flush my system, something my system desperately needs.

That's all for now.

Week 2, day 3 of the weight loss challenge

2010-07-21T11:48:00.004-04:00

I've lost two pounds in two days. Granted, my workouts both Monday and Tuesday were HARD. Between weights and interval training, I'm a bit knackered today but it was worth it and other than the stiff muscles, I feel fantastic.

The food consumption has been between 1400-1600 calories both days and I've given up bananas as my afternoon snack in exchange for carrots (because I literally choke down bananas and can't stand the taste).

One recipe that I'll share with you all was from Monday night... I made prosciutto wrapped scallops with a sun dried tomato paste. Incredible. All I did was take a few sun dried tomatoes, some basil and grind it into a paste (food processor). Then I smothered the scallops with it and wrapped them all in thinly sliced prosciutto. Bake on 350 for 15-20 mins and they protein/flavour filled pieces of heaven. I also made a chickpea/blackbean couscous on the side (which I had all of 1/4 a cup due to it being high in calories) and a huge salad.

So as you can see, things are going well so far this week but are about to hit a major snag. I'm visting my family in the US this weekend. I'll try to workout a couple times, I'll try to control the junk food... but jeez, I'll be on a mini vacation so I want to at least indulge in some of the food/drink (and my Mom and I... we love the red vino). So i've lost two pounds in two days. If I can make it to the next weigh in on Monday and carry that two pound weight loss, it will be a minor miracle.

Starting week 2 of the 30 lbs in 30 day challenge

2010-07-19T09:09:00.003-04:00

Week one is complete and I have very mixed feelings on this challenge and my weight loss so far. I weighed in this morning...and lost a grand total of 2 lbs. I see more muscle definition and my clothes are fitting a bit more loosely, but only 2 lbs? On one hand, I feel disappointed. But on the other hand, I think 2 lbs is sustainable weight loss for me. I don't want to do this challenge, completely restrict my life and then gain a bit of weight back when this is over.

I want this weight to come off without me totally altering my lifestyle. Hence, why I spent the weekend in what was a bit of gluttony. Here's the breakdown:

Friday
Normal diet regime all day (and 2 workouts) except Friday night we head out for dinner. I have a half bottle of wine, veg, chicken, and cream of mushroom soup with lots of cheddar and sour cream. Other than the wine and the soup, not too bad.

Saturday
I eat a bit more for breakfast than during the week, but it's a fried egg sandwich with fat free cheese, turkey bacon and healthy (small) bread. Major weekend workout. Salad for lunch. Then we head to a close friend's engagement party and things fall off the rails. Wine, vodka, appetizers, beer and no solid dinner, just grazing on cheese and cured meats...which is amazing.

Sunday
I'm brutally hungover. Scrambled eggs/salsa burritos, bacon (three pieces) and a hashbrown for breakfast. Yes, I probably consumed half my day's calories with breakfast. Half a hotdog and a beer at the Honda Indy car race (we walked everywhere and didn't sit down for about 5 hours so I'm thinking the hotdog and beer were a wash). Mini quiches for a snack and then spicy thai noodles for dinner.

So taking a look at my week as a whole, 2 lbs isn't really that bad. I guess? I don't know... maybe i'm just rationalizing.

Regardless, i'm not giving up. Was back in the gym this morning for some punishing cardio.

UPDATE: I just spoke with The Husband about the weight loss...and he said that was sustainable and fantastic for me (I don't have that much weight to lose period). He said that given the amount of food and drink I had (and I stress Drink), and I still lost weight, that's a huge win. So I feel a bit better.

Day four of the 30 lbs in 30 day challenge

2010-07-15T21:07:00.004-04:00

As of today, I'm in MUCH better condition than I was two days ago. I'm still hungry, but not overly so. And if I go too long without eating, I become a raging b*tch. But all in all, I feel good.

And I've lost weight. And by virtue of my weights/circuit workouts, I know I've put on some muscle.

To be honest, I'm not doing much different than I was two days ago except I've started eating about 50-100 calories more a day in fruit (blackberries to be exact because I love them and a cup is only 60 calories). Because I'm not doing much differently, I just think my body is re-calibrating... or getting used to being tortured with vigorous exercise and restricted food (good, organic, non-processed food... but restricted food nonetheless).

For those of you reading this who are participating in the challenge as well, here is my day four info (you might find it helpful):

Workout:

45 minutes heavy interval bike cardio in morning

1 hour circuit weight training in evening (after which I could barely lift my arms to wash my hair...brutal)

Food:

1 green apple post workout (8:30)

all-bran and fat free yogurt (9:30)

low fat/low calorie PC blue menu chicken tikka masala (this is a canadian version of lean cuisine for all my american friends)

1 medium banana (3:30 p.m.)

1 slice 9 grain whole wheat bread, toasted (it's a small loaf so each slice is like 70 cals)

1 tbsp PB for my toast

1 scoop protein powder post weight workout (7:00)

scrambled eggs with salsa, a little bit of turkey and a huge salad with blackberries, chickpeas, peppers, etc.

enough water to drown me

Grand total calories (and I'm an OCD measurer so you can trust this): 1550

Again, I feel good. I think I've found the right balance of proteins to carbs... and good carbs too, none of this enriched white flour bullsh*t.

What's up next? The weekend. ugh.

This will be a challenge because I will have wine (and possibly a lot of it) and I won't be as regimented in my food consumption. On the other hand, I'll also be doing two workouts again tomorrow, and one both Saturday and Sunday... so we'll see how things net out on Monday morn when I weigh in. I have a magic weight loss number in my head and if I can make that with the weekend's debauchery, I'll be doing just fine.

Will post again, likely Sunday, to share how I managed (or didn't).

To see how my friend Emily is doing in her quest, check out fatgirltothin.blogspot.com. She's way funnier and doesn't use the swears like I do...so more pleasant to read.

Day two of the 30 lbs in 30 days challenge

2010-07-13T21:41:00.003-04:00

It's day two and I'm starving. Here's what my initial plan was:

Workouts:

Monday-Friday: 2 a day workouts, before and after work

Saturday: one long workout with weights and at at least 45 mins of cardio

Sunday: rest

Food:

1300-1500 calories per day... very little if any processed foods, lots of fruit/veg/protein and very little carbs in the evening. Weekends can be a bit more lax.

For instance, today this was my food intake:

Just Apples apple puree fruit cup pre morning workout

Allbran w/ fat free yogurt for breakfast

Green apple for a mid morning snack

1/2 cup jasmine rice, 1 1/2 cup of veg/tofu/chicken for lunch

banana for mid afternoon snack

1 scoop protein powder in water post afternoon workout

salmon fillet with a HUGE salad (w/ blackberries, red peppers, chickpeas, craisins...all measured so I can track the caloric value) for dinner

Verdict so far? Again, I'm starving and have very low energy.

Maybe I need a glass of wine to take the edge off... but knowing how my last two days have been with food/exercise, i'd be hammered after one glass (kidding... sort of).

After chatting with The Husband who is a fitness guru... we've decided that 1300-1500 calories isn't enough for 2 a day workouts. So I'll have to increase by at least a hundred calories. I'm also thinking of cutting down the 2 a days to four days a week rather than five. So i'll have four days of working out twice per day, two days of only one workout and one day of rest... still seems pretty formidable in terms of the contest battle.

We'll see. All I know is that my energy level is brutally low.

Lose 30 lbs in 30 days? Gonna try.

2010-07-08T12:19:00.002-04:00

My friend and former university roommate, Emily, has a blog: fatgirltothin.blogspot.com and I read it frequently... she's hilarious and informative on the subject of weight loss.

So yesterday she posed a contest, lose 30 lbs in 30 days. Anyone who wanted to join up who had 30 to lose could do so.

I'm in.

Let's be honest here, I don't have 30 to lose safely. If I succeed in losing 30, I'll be a total stick given my height (5'8)... is that going to stop me from trying? Hell no... might be fun to be a stick for a little while.

Contest starts Monday so I have the weekend to fat it up.

Stay tuned to the blog for details.

To the new people...

2010-06-24T08:42:00.003-04:00

I met several people last night at the first Winealign community event held at Canoe. The event was incredible but in case any of those I met last night stumble on this poor excuse for a blog, here's the link to my first post on why I started: http://wineandparties.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-this-is-all-about-and-why-im-doing.html

If you're new, it will give you some background. I know this has turned into a lot of food and less wine, but I do wine of the days on Twitter (all week...taking a break on weekends). As well as quite a bit of wine content there. I have to admit, it's much easier to update my Twitter feed than to update the blog.

I may do a proper blog post on the tasting last night (premium Wolf Blass vino from the vinomaker Chris Hatcher), but I'll need some time to digest and recover. Admittedly, the wine tasting itself is not what did me in last night. It was the carousing afterwards...and usually, I "carouse" well.

Note: late night pizza pizza is THE BEST idea ever, don't let others steer you differently.

Cremini mushroom, gorgonzola and sausage risotto

2010-06-22T22:10:00.005-04:00

Have you ever seen the Slap Chop informercial? For some reason, I see it frequently and it draws a laugh every time. One of my favorite lines is where he says, "you'll be slapping your troubles away"... so that's the ongoing joke now when we use it. That and "you're gonna love my nuts" but that's another story altogether.

I bring this up because I used my Slap Chop in tonight's dinner dish: cremini mushroom, gorgonzola and sausage risotto. Most of my recipes are inspired by a chef and created because I have something in the fridge that's going to go off soon. This one was no different. I had chicken stock that needed to be used and I found a recipe by Giada de Laurentiis which was the base for tonight's dish (see original recipe here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/gorgonzola-and-porcini-mushroom-risotto-recipe/index.html)

And now my version (forgive typos... we're on the second bottle of vino).

Ingredients:

4-5 cups low-sodium chicken stock
8 cremini mushrooms chopped
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, diced (or SLAP CHOPPED TO HELL because I hate big mushroom chunks)
2 cloves garlic (again, slap chopped)
1.5 cups arborio rice
3/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
3/4 cup (3 ounces) Gorgonzola, crumbled
1/2 cup marble cheddar
3 mild italian turkey sausages cooked and sliced diagonally
Salt/pepper to taste
Directions
Heat stock to a simmer and keep warm over low heat.
In a large, heavy saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium-high heat. Add the onion, garlic and mushrooms and cook until the onions are tender but not brown, about 3 minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat with the butter. Add the wine and simmer until the wine has almost evaporated, about 3 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of warm stock and stir until almost completely absorbed, about 2 minutes. Start cooking the sausages at this point because they will be done roughly when the risotto is. Continue with remaining stock, adding 1/2 cup at a time, and allowing each addition to be absorbed, until the rice is tender to the bite and the mixture is creamy, about 20 to 25 minutes. Slice up the sausages when they are done. Remove the risotto pan from the heat. Stir in the parmesan, gorgonzola, marble cheddar, sausages salt and pepper (if needed). Serve right away with white wine... I'm using a sauv blanc.
This recipe is creamy deliciousness.

Coq au Vin

2010-06-06T22:22:00.011-04:00

I've done three posts in one day... the previous two posts are from past events, this post is current.

It was my birthday yesterday and I got an Emile Henry large dutch oven. Don't laugh, I asked for it. I have a medium sized Emile Henry dutch oven and it's just not big enough if I want to make a meal for more than two people. And you might ask why not Le Creuset? Because I like Emile Henry better and I have them in black which makes my kitchen/presentation style look pretty bad-ass sophisticated. Everyone has Le Creuset. Not everyone has Emile Henry. Yes, i'm snobby. Get over it.

So it's the day after my bday, I had a wicked red wine and vodka headache and only intense physical activity cured it (bike ride). At that point, I was up to using my birthday gift and as we had steak last night, chicken seemed like a good idea tonight. So what should I make in my new dutch oven that's chicken? Coq au Vin... recipe supplied by my all time fave chef: The Barefoot Contessa. She writes recipes in a way that makes total sense to me and I gravitate towards her style of cooking. It hasn't failed me yet and tonight's meal was incredible. Freaking amazing and I'm so excited we have leftovers for lunch.

Here's the recipe in it's entirety: Coq au Vin from foodnetwork.com

And here's my version:

Directions

2 tablespoons good olive oil
Ingredients

* 5 slices maple bacon
* 6 pieces skin on, bone in chicken... I used four thighs and two legs
* Salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 1/2 pound carrots cut diagonally in 1-inch pieces
* 1 yellow onion, sliced using my SLAP CHOP (yes, I have one and I love it)
* 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
* 1/4 cup brandy
* 1/2 bottle (375 ml) good dry red wine
* 1 1/2 cup chicken stock
* 10 fresh thyme sprigs
* 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, divided
* 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, stems removed and thickly sliced

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.

Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven. Add the bacon and cook over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove the bacon to a plate with a slotted spoon.

Meanwhile, lay the chicken out on paper towels and pat dry. Liberally sprinkle the chicken on both sides with salt and pepper. When the bacon is removed, brown the chicken pieces in batches in a single layer for about 5 minutes, turning to brown evenly. Remove the chicken to the plate with the bacon and continue to brown until all the chicken is done. Set aside.

Add the carrots, onions, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper to the pan and cook over medium heat for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are lightly browned. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the Cognac and put the bacon, chicken, and any juices that collected on the plate into the pot. Add the wine, chicken stock, and thyme and bring to a simmer. Cover the pot with a tight fitting lid and place in the oven for around 40 minutes, until the chicken is just not pink. Remove from the oven and place on top of the stove.

Mash 1 tablespoon of butter and the flour together and stir into the stew. In a medium saute pan, add the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and cook the mushrooms over medium-low heat for 5 to 10 minutes, until browned. Add to the stew. Bring the stew to a simmer and cook for another 10 minutes. Season to taste. Serve hot and with garlic mashed potatoes.

I can't even explain how delicious this is...

p.s. testing a new font... that's why it doesn't match the rest of my posts

The "I haven't seen my friends in ages so I'll cook because I feel guilty" dinner party

2010-06-06T22:09:00.004-04:00

It's true, I hadn't seen my close friends in weeks. I'd been busy at work, been to NYC and when I had some down time, I just didn't feel like entertaining. What I felt like was curling up with a book and a glass of vino... that's it.

Then one day, I felt like entertaining again and so we had this dinner party (kind of like waking up from a lot of down time). Menu developed by the Husband and I. Wine consumed? At least 12 bottles among eight of us. Hard liquor consumed? At least a 40 of Canadian Club. Karaoke songs sung using the 100 inch screen TV at my in-laws? Too many to count. Noise complaints at 2:45 a.m.? One.

It was a very good night following by a very hungover next day.

Here's the menu:

1. Appetizer supplied by close guy friend: cheese and fruit tray (the stilton on this tray rocked my sox)

2. Bean/Chickpea salads supplied by close friends

3. Meat Lasagna, roast potatoes, parmesan broccoli supplied by le Husband and I

4. Chocolate mousse cake supplied by close friends

The lasagna recipe is mostly from my mother and it was a huge hit so here's the instructions...

My Mom's Lasagna

12 lasagna noodles (alter depending on your pan size... mine was a 9x13)

1 large can tomato sauce

1 tub cottage cheese

1 tub ricotta

1 package extra lean ground beef

1 package extra lean ground pork

Italian seasoning

about 2 cups shredded havarti (that was my addition...my mom uses mozzarella I think)

parmesan

salt/pepper

Preheat oven to 35oF. Boil noodles until al dente. Cook beef/pork together with about a tbsp of italian seasoning and salt/pepper. When noodles/meat are done, you're ready to assemble. I put a bit of tomato sauce on the bottom of the pan so that nothing sticks, then do a layer of all meat with a bit of sauce (not a whole lot), then a layer of all the ricotta and all the cottage cheese. Then another layer of meat/sauce, then the last three noodles (three noodles cover the width). Then lots of sauce on the top so it seeps down into the sides of the lasagna, all the havarti and parm to just lightly dust the top. Bake for about 30-35 minutes. Serve hot.

Freezes really well.

The wines we had? All chianti, chianti classico and chianti classico riserva (in reverse order)... it was an epic night for wine consumption.

NYC Trip

2010-06-06T21:59:00.005-04:00

I'm behind on blogging, I know. Since my last post, I've been to NYC for the first time, had an amazing dinner party with a kick ass lasagna recipe (I'll post it soon) had a birthday and took a try at coq au vin which went really well and I'm kind of amazed with the Barefoot Contessa and my ability to follow a recipe.

But let's talk NYC first. Specifically, the cupcakes from Crumbs:

NYC has some sort of a bylaw that states if the resto has more than such and such locations, you must place the calorie content of the food next to the price. So when I walked into Crumbs and realized that I had entered cupcake heaven, it soon turned to cupcake hell when I saw the sign next to the cookie dough cupcake I desperately wanted: "2.75 -- 540 Calories." WHAAAA?

I know that cupcakes are bad for me, I totally get that. I even know that they are upwards of 500 calories and it's a caloric expenditure that most of the time I'm willing to take. But here it was in my face and I was giving the staff the WTF look because no one needs to have that info. Especially in cupcake heaven.

If you're wondering, yes, I ate the cupcake. And also, in case you're wondering: 540 Calories=One hour on the treadmill.

Chicken and Mushroom Bake

2010-05-06T11:57:00.003-04:00

To be honest, this is Le Husband's specialty... but he was working late last night so I stepped up to the plate (ahahaha, no pun intended) to take a stab at his recipe.

First let me say the following:

1. I didn't have all the ingredients necessary so I had to improvise hardcore.
2. My oven is effed up. It says 350, but I'm 100% positive that it's not 350.
3. I still haven't replaced my cooking thermometer which causes problems.
4. I was drinking...mmmmMalbec.

So here is the initial recipe that he uses from Allrecipes.com: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Swiss-Chicken-Bake/Detail.aspx

And here is my version:

Susan's Chicken, Cheese, Mushroom Bake

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 can low fat cream of mushroom soup
1/4 cup low fat sour cream
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups marble cheddar shredded cheese
2 cups sliced button mushrooms
1/8 cup water
1/4 cup shredded parm cheese
salt/pepper

Preheat oven to 425F

Lay out the chicken breasts in a baking dish and cover with the muchrooms and the mable cheddar shredded cheese. Mix the soup, sour cream, minced garlic, water, salt/pepper together and the cover the chicken/cheese/shrooms. Bake for 20 minutes on 425F, then bake for 30 minutes on 375F. Put on the parm cheese and bake for another five minutes.

I served this over garlic mashed potatoes and had fresh bread/butter on the side.

Now, the original baking instructions said 55 minutes on 350F.... this has NEVER worked for me so I altered... do what you need to do based on your oven.

It was super delicious and the chicken was moist. Def a keeper of a recipe.

As for wine, I know the malbec that I had wouldn't have been the first choice for a wine pairing but honestly, I didn't and still don't care. The vino was good. Had a valpolicella after the first bottle was gone because yes, it was that kind of day.

Prosecco Gelatin and Blueberry Parfaits

2010-04-26T10:14:00.004-04:00

I was in charge of dessert for a dinner party this past weekend and when my friends have dinner parties, we're usually stuffed by the time dessert comes because the appys and mains are always delicious and plentiful. Knowing this, I wanted to provide a lighter dessert. Normally, I would go for molten lava chocolate cakes (which I love to stuff in my face whenever possible), but they are heavy and I always need to lay flat on the ground and stretch my stomach after eating one of these. I know you have a visual of this but don't judge me as i'm pretty sure every person in the world has stretched their stomach on the floor at some point.

I digress.

Anyway, I decided to make prosecco gelatin and blueberry parfaits inspired by Claire Robinson from The Food Network's Five Ingredient Fix. Original recipe here.

I added the blueberries to this because I wanted it to be just a wee bit more decadent. The recipes are below but please note: I intended this to be a lighter dessert but it wasn't. It was so amazing but I learned a lesson... no dessert is light. No one minded eating this despite being stuffed because it was delicious and we'd all had a ton of wine anyway so we were just chilling in our engorged states.

Blueberry Sauce (From Southern Living Mag)

* 1 cups fresh blueberries
* 2 and 2/3 tablespoons cup sugar
* 1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (I accidentally got a bit heavy handed with the vanilla so it was more like 1/2 teaspoon which was fine, it just made me want to drink this when it was done... soooooo good)

Wash and crush blueberries; add sugar, lemon juice and salt. Mix well. In a small saucepan, bring blueberry mixture to a boil; boil 1 minute. Add vanilla. Chill.

Prosecco Gelatin and Cream

* 1 bottle Prosecco (750 ml)
* 3/4 cup sugar, divided
* 1/2 cup water
* 2 (1/4-ounce) packets unflavored gelatin (I live in Canada... so the measurements are way different here... the packets actually come in metric. I used two 1.8 gram packets which is the same as 2 1/4 ounce packets.
* 1 cup heavy cream
* 1/2 pint mascarpone, room temperature

Put the Prosecco, 1/2 cup of the sugar and 1/2 cup water in a large saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes to burn off some of the alcohol. Remove from the heat and slowly whisk in the gelatin until completely dissolved. Pour into a 9 by 11-inch baking dish, cool to room temperature, then refrigerate to set up for at least 4 hours. NOTE: Doing this makes your kitchen and dining area smell like hardcore booze. I put my face over this while it was simmering and seriously burned my nosehairs off.

In a large bowl, whip the cream to medium stiff peaks. In another bowl, whisk the remaining 1/4 cup sugar into the mascarpone until smooth. Add 1/3 of the whipped cream to the mascarpone to lighten, and then fold in the remaining whipped cream. NOTE: I wanted to eat this with a spoon, by itself. MMMM.

Assembly Directions:

Cut the Prosecco gelatin into 1 by 1-inch cubes and put a layer into the bottoms of 4 parfait glasses. Divide 1/2 of the cream mixture among the glasses on top of the gelatin, put a little bit of the blueberry sauce on the cream and then repeat with 2 more layers, ending with a final dollop of the blueberry sauce.

Tyler Florence, you lied.

2010-04-19T19:43:00.009-04:00

So at the gym today, working off my five pounds from the weekend, Tyler Florence convinced me that "making scones is easy" in his show, "Tyler's Ultimate."

He lied.

Big time.

The scones are in the oven right now and if they actually taste edible, I'll post my version of Tyler's "easy" recipe this evening.

Making homemade mac and cheese this evening as well... if that goes as it should, it's just a standard white sauce with a shit-ton of old sharpe cheddar (Ivanhoe from Metro) mixed with fusilli. Will formally post that later as well. And by later, I could mean tomorrow.

Damned Florence. Never listening to him again.

*UPDATE*

So the scones don't taste bad... in fact, the outside is crunchy and the inside is nice and soft...not like most scones where the whole thing is kind of like a baseball.

The photo is above (I don't have time to mess with this this morning so it's staying up there for now).

Here's my official recipe and this is Tyler's Berry Scone original:

Berry Buttermilk Scones:

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 3 tablespoons sugar, plus more for sprinkling scones
* 1 tablespoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
* 3/4 stick cold unsalted butter, cubed ***on the TV show, he said room temp butter... again, liar.
* 1 1/2 cups fresh mixed berries (e.g. blueberries, raspberries, blackberries), washed and dried***this is not enough berries... I used 2.5
* 3/4 cup buttermilk, plus more to brush scones
* 1 tbsp honey, whisked into the buttermilk (that is MY addition)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a food processor bowl add flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add cold butter cubes and pulse until you have the texture of coarse bread crumbs. Transfer to a large mixing bowl, then add 3/4 cup of buttermilk and stir to combine. As it comes together add berries and fold dough to incorporate berries but not break them up too much. *****on the TV show, it said to add the berries first to "coat" them in the flour mixture and then add the buttermilk... I did it this way as i'd seen it on TV... BAD IDEA... the raspberries break up with even the lightest touch.

Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a parchment lined sheet pan. Using a pastry brush, paint the tops of each scone lightly with buttermilk and sprinkle with sugar. His recipe said six scones, mine made seven.

Bake until golden brown, and nice and puffy, about 17 to 20 minutes (mine took about 22). Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack.

Weekend Food, Wine and Shopping update

2010-04-18T21:12:00.004-04:00

Is it possible to gain a full five pounds in two days? Yes it is, trust.

Let's all take solace in that even though it's possible to gain five pounds in two days, it's also pretty easy to lose that in five with cardio, weights, two litres of water every day and All-Bran.

Now let's get to how I actually gained those pounds.

The Rhino. Anyone who has ever been to The Rhino knows that although it's a bit dodgy at times (due to simply being in Parkdale), it has one of the best fish and chip plates in the city and the beer selection is fantastic. I gorged myself on fried foods and beer... then had a wicked migraine the next day preventing any post gorge workout. Accumulate two pounds here (worth it).

Rowe Farms. Rowe Farms just opened in Bloor West Village (my 'hood) a couple months ago and I had yet to patronize...until this weekend. I purchased the chipotle beef burgers and cinnamon breakfast sausage. Both were serious home-runs. If you need some delicious burgers, go here. If you don't like beef, they have turkey. As for the sausages, I served them with cinnamon french toast and holy hell, it was delicious. Accumulate another pound.

Cobs Bread. Again, opened in Bloor West Village recently and I had yet to visit. But when I did, I purchased the most amazing, fresh sesame hamburger buns, a French style baguette and banana chocolate chip scones. I was very impressed with the service and the price. There are loads of bakeries in Bloor West but to be honest, I haven't found the friendly customer service that I found at Cobs this weekend. Accumulate two pounds.

The wine consumed this weekend wasn't considerable in volume, but it was delicious and although I know that the wine did accumulate the calories, I refuse to admit that it adds to my poundage accumulation. It's too beautiful and innocent to attribute blame to. With our chipotle burgers, we had Terroir Cache from Hidden Bench. I had two bottles in my wine fridge and in order to make room for other bottles, I sacrificed one last night. Holy hell delicious. I also used a mid-level bottle of chard (I believe it was Wolf Blass Gold Label) in the risotto I made this evening, recipe below. It's not the best wine in the world, but it's a lazy Sunday and well, it worked.

Now to tonight's risotto... try this... it's so good.

Green Bean and Mushroom Risotto

1 handful of green beans (grab a handful at the grocery and that's good)

7 button mushrooms

1 cup freshly grated parm

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp oil

4 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped

2 baby leeks, finely chopped

1 liter chicken stock, hot

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 1/3 cup arborio rice

125 ml white wine

salt/pepper.

Ok, so this might be a little unorthodox, but I brown my mushrooms in one tbsp butter and boiled/blanched my green beans first (salt the pot!), then set them aside to just chill.

Then, in the same pan where you browned your shrooms, put in the other tbsp of butter and the tbsp oil. Put in the leeks and garlic, saute really quickly until soft.

Add in rice and stir around for about a minute, then turn up the heat and add the wine and mustard. Let the rice soak up all the wine.

When that's soaked, start ladling in the hot stock, one ladle at a time, stirring constantly and waiting until the stock is soaked up before adding another ladle. Repeat Repeat Repeat for about 20-22 minutes.

Add in cheese/salt/pepper to taste and pre-cooked veg... serve immediately on hot plates. I reserved a bit of cheese as garnish.

I highly recommend.

Irish Soda Bread

2010-04-10T18:53:00.003-04:00

We ate at Quinn's Steakhouse last night (Sheraton, downtown Toronto) and had the most lovely Irish Soda Bread. Our entire meal was really great starting with the charcuterie with one of the most delicious duck pates that I've had in a long time. My steak was perfectly rare, or what I refer to as "mooing" and the salt rubbed baked potato was a really nice touch. But the bread got me to thinking if I could make it and craving it once I got home.

So I tried to make it from this recipe at Allrecipes.com: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Irresistible-Irish-Soda-Bread/Detail.aspx

It's gooooood.

YUM.

Quick and simple fun with veggies

2010-04-06T10:01:00.003-04:00

Anyone who knows me fairly well knows that I'm not a huge fan of vegetables. Basically, the only way that I like to eat them is when they are smothered in a rich sauce or cheese.

However, veg is healthy and I've been doing my best to incorporate it into my diet on a daily basis. Here are two very quick and easy green veg recipes... one is mine and one is my friend Andrew's.

My easy Broccoli recipe:

1 head broccoli
blue cheese
old white cheddar
salt
pepper
breadcrumbs

Cut up a head of broccoli into florets and boil for like 3 minutes (you could steam as well). Drain broc and put into ramekins (the most under-utilized fun kitchen tool ever!). Insert chopped up pieces of white cheddar throughout the broc (I sliced off a piece from the block, that was enough per rammie). Then put salt/pepper and a small pad of butter over the broc, lay a slice of blue cheese over that and finally sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Bake on 425 for 10 minutes.

Andrew's Green Beans

2 fistfuls of green beans
1.5 cups fresh grated parmesan
olive oil
garlic
salt/pepper

Boil then blanche green beans. Saute beans with crushed garlic, enough olive oil to lightly cover the pan and the fresh parmesan until all the cheese is melty and delicious. Salt/pepper and serve immediately. I don't like green beans. In fact, I hadn't had a green bean since I was a child and my parents made me sit at the dinner table until I finished all of them. BUT, I loved these green beans.

WineAlign: My Gold Jersey Sponsor

2010-03-31T12:34:00.004-04:00

I posted a while back about participating in The Ride to Conquer Cancer, a 2-day cycling event from Toronto to Niagara Falls (200km) in June. All money raised goes to The Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto for cancer research.

My Grandma passed away from cancer and my mother has had a very small, treatable form of skin cancer. Cancer is my cause... I'm passionate about raising money for this and helping those much smarter than I find a cure.

To participate in The Ride, I must raise $2,500. It's not easy for me because I hate asking people for their hard earned money, especially when there are so many worthy causes. Because I find this quite difficult and hate badgering my friends, family and colleagues, I've been trying to sell pieces of my jersey. I call it, "selling off body parts for cancer research" but it's really an opportunity for companies to gain some exposure because I wear their logo on a part of my body for pretty much the entire weekend.

You wouldn't believe the conversations that happen while riding a bike 200kms... having a company logo plastered to my body has started several of these conversations.

Which brings me to the announcement that my Gold Jersey Sponsor for 2010 is WineAlign!

Here's the WineAlign bio:

WineAlign is the ultimate service for making informed buying decisions at your local Ontario government wine store. Use it before you shop from your home or office computer, or standing right in the store aisle with your mobile device. It aligns current store inventory, professional critical ratings and reviews, your budget, your food choices, your taste preferences and those of your friends. It is also a practical site, providing valuable tools to manage your own cellar and inventory and build your own personal rating system.

I have an account with WineAlign and fully support this company because it has really helpful information and is pretty addictive for someone that loves wine. If you live in Ontario, get an account and start surfing, buying and drinking.

Thank you to Bryan McCaw (the mastermind behind this company) and WineAlign for supporting me and The Ride!

Toronto Wine and Cheese Show

2010-03-23T11:08:00.005-04:00

My headache has subsided and my body has been clean living for a couple of days. I'm now ready to talk about the Toronto Wine and Cheese Show. Personally, when I'm suffering the ill effects of my over consuming ways, I can't really talk about it without inflicting more pain on myself.

We had an enjoyable time at the show despite it being far outside of our usual travel habits. For those who don't know, the show was at a venue by the Toronto airport and we live downtown. We visit that area for the airport alone so going out there for another reason was foreign to us. Well worth it in hindsight, but the point is, it takes a lot for us to travel to the burbs.

We attended the show itself and then two gala events (Wine & Cheese tasting as well as the Chef/Sommelier challenge) thanks to the gentlemen at Winealign who generously gave us tickets. Winealign, in case you don't know, is like a social networking site for wine lovers. You go, sign up and search wines and reviews until your heart's content. I've found it really helpful and if you live in Ontario, I suggest signing up right away.

Now for the show highlights and i'll start off with the food...

Ivanhoe Cheese We visited with the rep from Ivanhoe for quite a while... he had a selection of four cheeses including a wonderful aged white cheddar and a horseradish cheddar. We loved these and went back for seconds. You can purchase these in Metro or Sobeys, so we were told, but I have yet to confirm this. This will definitely be on our list of places to visit on our next trip out to PEC (prince edward county).

Frida Restaurant Chef Hadad is the head chef here and in my family, we know him as the Mad Mexican. Since I moved to Toronto three and a half years ago, I make it a point to stop by St. Lawrence Market every so often to grab some of the Mad Mexican's products. He makes the most amazing salsas and homemade tortilla chips. My particular favorite is the spicy black bean dip... mix this with the chips and it's like my kryptonite. I've been known to sit down with a carton of dip and a bag of chips and eat the entire thing. When I saw Chef Hadad, I grabbed the Husband and said, far too loudly because I'd had quite a bit of wine at this point, "That's the Mad Mexican!!" Embarassing, yet funny.

He was competing in the Chef/Sommelier challenge and served a lamb barbacoa with Catena Malbec. It was delicious and because of my love for his food and personality, it was very difficult for me not to vote for him to win... but I couldn't because shortly after eating his lamb, I had the best biryani i've ever tasted in my life with the most delicious Greek white. Which brings me to the next highlight.

Indian Rice Factory I know that I met one of the chefs here, but I can't remember his name... and I can't remember the wine that Zoltan Szabo served with it, nor can I find the notes that took at the time (thank you Vodka consumed after the wine show for that lapse in placement). What I do remember is that I voted for the Biryani/Greek wine combo to win the Chef Sommelier challenge because they were both delicious and Indian Rice Factory is now number one on my restaurant hit list. The gentleman we spoke with from the resto was so lovely and I feel bad for not remembering his name. If I ever meet him again, I'll apologize to him for telling him that his Biryani was "bitchin"... probably not the most helpful adjective to give a chef or the most appropriate thing to say to a stranger, but I blame the red wine.

Coyote's Run Winery We had their Cabernet with the aged cheddar and horseradish cheddar from Ivanhoe and it was the best combination, in my opinion, of the Wine and Cheese tasting portion of the evening. This winery is on our hit list for our next trip out to the Niagara region.

Lailey Vineyards This winery took part in the Wine and Cheese tasting as well. The cheese was good, but what we remembered most from this stand was talking with the Lailey Rep. He was delightful and again, I misplaced his card so I don't have his name. I'm almost positive that it's on my desk at home but if it's there, then it's in the vortex and I'll find it in a few months. His wine was lovely and so was he which makes Lailey another winery on our hit list. Definitely suggest you check out both Lailey and Coyotes run if you can.

Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery We met the actual Sue Ann which was cool because she was funny and really excited to be apart of the Wine and Cheese tasting. She was telling us about her labels, her winery, and how she got started. Just an overall fun person to chat with and her wine was quite nice. She said, and I quote, "if you visit my winery, you can see where I live and even pet my dog"... so we will definitely be visiting her as well. I also think she needs to win a label award of some kind... from a design perspective, I think she has a winner.

Here endeth the Wine and Cheese Show highlights. I hope you enjoyed and find the food/wine if you can... simply delicious. And now i'm really hungry.

On a more random note, we travel a lot and we always bring back wine in our suitcases... up until now it's been a huge hassle because you have to ensure it's packed properly and coated with plastic so in the case that it breaks, it doesn't soil your clothing. That problem is no more thanks to Wine Skin. Check out the technology here. Rosehill Wine Cellars in Toronto carries the Wine Skin. If you travel and need a safe, no hassle way to bring back wine, pick up a few of these.

Spicy beef spare ribs and rice noodles

2010-03-16T21:34:00.003-04:00

I'm blogging from my phone which is why this post might look a little weird. I'm sitting next to the Husband who is working late. I brought him dinner in his working late hour of need because as I told him, it's what "married people do.".

But what I brought him for dinner is way more important than why: spicy beef spare ribs with rice vermacelli.

Here's the quick and dirty recipe:

One pack beef spare ribs
President's Choice Memories of Korean BBQ sauce
Thai chili sauce
1/4 cup chopped scallions
1/4 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup chopped red peppers
One egg
4 tbsp veg oil
Half a pack of rice vermacelli
Soy sauce

Coat the spare ribs in the Korean BBQ sauce and bake at 400 for 10-12 minutes. Boil noodles for one-two minutes and then rince with cold water and coat with a little veg oil. In medium hot pan, put in veg oil and sort of crack the egg in and scramble it super quick, then put in a bit more veg oil, then the noodles. I stir fry the noodles for a couple minutes, then add all the veg and korean bbq sauce, chili sauce and soy sauce. You want everything to be sufficiently coated and have a taste of the noodles, that should tell you if one flavor is lacking.

Cut the spare ribs in between their bones so they are like single serve pieces and toss with the noodles. I usually add in a bit of the rib pan drippings for extra flavor, give it one more toss then serve.

It's delicious.

Back and Buying New Cooking Thermometers

2010-03-14T01:19:00.004-05:00

I'm back from my ski vacation, am threw with work for the week and have deliberately made time for food and wine. Admittedly, it's been difficult of late. I'm tired by the end of the day for various reasons and blogging is the last thing on my mind. I even considered shutting the blog down for a bit simply because I can't devote the time it deserves, at least in the immediate future so I thank my readers for bearing with me.

But this weekend, I made time. I made time for cooking, which I really missed, and mass consumption of wine (reeeeaaalllly missed as well). Here are my stories and the info fruits of my labour. Use them as you will... but I encourage you to use them. All recipes in this post were rockstars and please forgive typos in advance.

Friday Night Chillout Dinner:

Rosemary Pork Tenderloin with Maple Bacon from Five Ingredient Fix on the Food Network.

I found this recipe while at the gym, on the treadmill where I find about 95% if of my recipes.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/claire-robinson/rosemary-pork-tenderloin-recipe/index.html

Instead of the dijon mustard this recipe calls for, we used Kozlik's Double C but that was the only modification we made. Served with broc cheese and baked potatoes, this pork recipe was amazing. So flavourful and it made the kitchen smell succulent. One of the best parts about this recipe is that it's so easy... you must try.

Saturday Night Dinner with Mum In Law:

My mum isn't hugely big on carbs. She eats them, but not often and prefers to simply have proteins and veg with dinner. So that was my challenge this evening: think out of the box with vegetables to provide my mum in law with a very satisfying meal. This is what transpired:

Starter: Mixed green salad with orange bell pepper, chick peas in a balsamic/olive oil dressing. Make this exactly as it says. I didn't use a proper dressing on this, just olive oil coat and balsamic over it. Dead easy and tasty.

Main: Duck Breast in a port orange cherry sauce. See recipe here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/claire-robinson/duck-breasts-with-citrus-port-cherry-sauce-recipe/index.html I didn't change a think on this recipe. But please note, I was feeding three people and my butcher advised me on two duck breasts... but I didn't halve the sauce recipe because the sauce is way too good to make any less. A huge benefit to this recipe is that you open a bottle of port. I know it says to use Ruby Port but I'm a bigger fan of Tawny, so I used that and the outcome was incredible. Plus, you have an open port for after dinner drinks now...

Cauliflower Gratin: Ina Garten has bailed me out of so many food dilemmas that I love her, and have never met her. I was looking for a way to cook cauliflower that was really satisfying and delicious mostly because I had a head of cauliflower in my fridge and I knew it would go bad had I not used it. All of the recipes in this blog post were rockstars (as mentioned) but this one was super awesome http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/cauliflower-gratin-recipe/index.html. Recipe note: I didn't add as much parmesan and just added a bit more Gruyere...holy Jesus was it good.

Carrot and Parsnip Mash: http://www.recipezaar.com/Irish-Carrot-Parsnip-Mash-20910 I wanted to provide something that sort of felt like a mashed potato, yet provided a flavor that was both savoury and sweet at the same time because I thought that flavour combination would be more satisfying. I was right and this very easy recipe was a hit.

Dessert: I picked up mini desserts from the St. Lawrence Market because we are of the mind that one only needs a couple tastes of something sweet after a big meal, not the gargantuan desserts one is served in a resto. Next time you're doing some serious cooking, consider buying mini desserts and save yourself the hassle of cooking dessert. It's fun for all parties and you can purchase several different kinds.

And the reason why I need to buy new cooking thermometers? Because between my personal thermometer and my in-laws', I think both of them are full of shit. I borderline overcooked both the pork from last night and the duck tonight while the thermom's said the meat wasn't even close to being done. Eff that... new ones are at the top of the shop list.

I'm a bad blogger

2010-02-22T12:41:00.002-05:00

Hi All,

This is a food, wine and parties blog. I haven't been doing much of any of that lately which is why the posts are lacking. I have, however, been working, skiing and sleeping. As exciting as I think all of those things are, you probably won't think so, hence, I'm not writing about them.

I'm headed out west this week for a ski vacation but will be back, and hopefully cooking, eating, drinking and partying again while on vacation and afterwards. Posts will commence then.

Thank you for understanding,
Susan

Top Chef Masters

2010-02-08T23:18:00.004-05:00

Let me preface this post with a quick note on how uneventful my life has been for a few days on the food/wine front... I was in Ottawa for a very sad function which I will leave out of this blog and haven't had an opportunity to touch my kitchen for days.

I've replaced cooking with catching up on episodes of Top Chef Masters. If you are reading this, live in the US and know who wins, just know that Canada hasn't gotten that far yet! We just had the fried chicken episode which has me craving fried chicken worse than chocolate (and that, my friends, is a bad craving).

When I started craving fried chicken because of the recipe I saw on the show, I started to think of all the foods from my time living in the southern US and all the foods that were so decadent and fattening... you know, the ones that you really don't want to live without but you know that you have to live without them so you don't turn into a balloon with heart disease? Yes, you know what I'm talking about... you're thinking of those foods right now.

Here's my list of foods I wish I could eat every day but can't because they are heart attacks on a plate:

1. fried chicken

2. biscuits and gravy (white gravy)

3. chicken fried steak

4. mashed potatoes made with heavy cream and butter

5. cheeseburgers and fries made from the local diner

6. deep fried mushrooms

7. mozzarella sticks (battered and fried).

Holy hell, there is a theme here. Maybe I should just say eff-it and buy a deep fryer for fun, go hog wild for a week and then hope I get a tape worm that will eat all that excess food so I stay thin?

Riding my bike to conquer cancer

2010-02-02T21:38:00.003-05:00

For the third year in a row, i'm riding my bike from Toronto to Niagara Falls to raise money for cancer research, raising at least $2,500 to be exact. The event is called, The Ride to Conquer Cancer.

I lost one of my Grandmother's to breast cancer and my mother has had skin cancer, so this is a cause that I feel strongly about. I know there are a lot of amazing causes that demand people's time and money, I donate to quite a few of those...but this one is where I devote the majority of my effort.

Raising $2,500 isn't easy... it gives me anxiety every year but it's worth it in the end.

This year, I'm asking friends for donations again, and also, for the second year in a row, I'm selling off my body parts in the form of Jersey Sponsorships. So if anyone who reads this knows of a company that might want to sponsor me, let me know... it's amazing exposure and I have a formal sponsorship proposal ready to send off to those considering sponsorship.

I'm also rewarding my friends this year... they are too good to me and have been every year. This year, I'm giving away four prizes to my donors (randomly chosen once a month) as incentives to donate and as a thank you gift. The prizes are food/wine related so again, if you know of anyone who wants to donate an in-kind gift, let me know that as well.

Thanks for listening and if you want to donate, check out my page here!

Lamb Chops, Couscous and a Balsamic glaze

2010-02-02T20:51:00.003-05:00

I'm sitting on my sofa, watching 500 days of summer because the Husband just left for the pub and I only get to watch chic flicks when he's gone. I call him a fascist behind his back.

I made lamb chops with couscous and a balsamic glaze this evening... i'd never actually cooked anything like this so it was a bit of a kitchen adventure. Despite having to open a lot of windows due to the grill smoking (yes, it's winter, so I grill inside with my grill pan), it turned out pretty deliciously. Here are the details (all executed by me, simultaneously, using all burners on my stove):

Lamb chops

1. Go to Costco and buy lamb chops. Mine came all attached so I had to take a knife to them and cut them individually, which wasn't so much fun for someone who doesn't really like touching raw meat. Salt and olive oil on both sides, grill 2-3 minutes a side until medium rare. YUM.

Balsamic Glaze

1. Put just over 1/4 of a coup in a pot and reduce

Couscous with Veg

1. Chop up 1/2 red pepper

2. Cut a about 5 grape tomatoes in half

3. Saute these in a little oil, garlic (two crushed cloves) in a splash of balsamic

Make one cup couscous following the instructions on your package. When the veg has cooked for a couple minutes and the couscous package instructions are complete, mix in the veg.

Assembly:

Place couscous/veg mix on plate (about 1 cup...more if you house a good eater), put three lamb chops on the couscous, pour glaze over lamb and couscous and finally, crumble some goat cheese over the top of everything (about 1 tbsp of cheese). Again, YUM.

In hindsight, I wouldn't put the red peppers in the couscous, but that's just me. I served it with mixed green salad which had fresh red peppers and those I would definitely keep in.

No wine this evening. Not because I didn't want it, moreso because I had a bit of a rough one at work today and if I started into the wine, I wouldn't stop for a loooong time.

Poached cod and Le Clos Jordanne Reserve Chardonnay

2010-02-02T09:25:00.003-05:00

We've had the bottle of Le Clos in the wine fridge for about two months now and I've been aching to crack it open. Poached cod in a a garlic/wine sauce and amazingly rich roast potatoes seemed like the right meal to dig into it with (and OMG was it ever).

Here's the Poached Cod info:

2 cups dry white wine
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 medium bay leaves
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
4 cod fillets (ours were pretty small)
the juice of 1/2 a lemon
3 cloves garlic, sliced

1. Combine wine, garlic, lemon, salt, bay leaves, and peppercorns in a large, shallow-sided pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low until liquid is at a simmer.
2. When poaching liquid is barely simmering, add fish in a single layer, making sure it is completely covered with liquid.
3. Poach until cod flesh is opaque and flakes easily (the internal temperature should be 175ºF) and vegetables are fork tender, about 7 minutes. You can reduce the sauce after removing the fish and it makes a really nice little sauce.

For the potatoes, see the roast potato recipe elsewhere in this blog (yes, I know we are addicted to these potatoes).

On the menu for this eve? Grilled lamb with tzaziki, some couscous which I haven't really decided how to cook yet and probably a salad... we'll see. I have this amazing cut of lamb though that is the star of the show.

And we're back...

2010-01-30T08:24:00.003-05:00

It's been a very busy week with a lot of wine consumption and minimal cooking... but the husband is back into solid, chewy foods (thank God because I've been craving a cheeseburger so badly).

More to report later.

Cheesy Penne

2010-01-24T21:01:00.004-05:00

And the soft food adventures continue. However, I'd like to say that I'm craving a burger and fries like nobody's business.

Although it's raining, we went out and picked up some mushroom cheddar chowder from Dr. Generosity in Bloor West Village and decided to make this Cheesy Penne recipe to go with it. Although pasta requires a bit of chewing, the husband says it's manageable.

I changed the penne recipe just a little bit, see below:

• 4 cups penne pasta

• 1/2 cup milk (I used skim milk)

• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard (I used Kozlik's Bordeaux flavor and it was awesome!!)

• 3/4 cup heavy cream (I used 18% cream)

• 4 ounces aged English white Cheddar, grated (I actually grated about 2.5 cups and made 1/2 cup mild cheddar)

• salt

• fresh cracked black pepper

Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add pasta, cook until al dente, and drain (I rinsed a little bit with warm water). Return pasta to the saucepan.

Whisk milk with Dijon in small bowl and add to the pot with cooked pasta, along with cream and grated Cheese. Stir over medium-low heat until the cheese melts and the mixture is nice and thick. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper and serve.

We really enjoyed this, super easy to make... I would use more cheese next time though.

The Soft Foods Dinner Party

2010-01-24T10:25:00.003-05:00

If you've been reading my blog, you'll know that the Husband has been recovering from surgery and can only eat soft foods that don't require a lot of chewing. He also hasn't been out much since the surgery. Hence, the Soft Foods Dinner Party idea.

The menu:

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Salad with strawberries, peppers, cucumbers and spinach in a balsamic vinaigrette

Chevre and Wild Mushroom Galette (from Max's Market in Bloor West)

Chicken Primavera Pie (also from Max's Market)

Garlic mashed potatoes (using white flesh potatoes which I must say, I like using these better than yukon gold's... maybe it's because my mother always used these and I like how fluffy and light they turn out)

Chocolate Mousse (homemade by my friends from allrecipes.com... they said it was the recipe with the most stars)

Wine from Opimian's:

Tortoise Creek Shiraz 2008

Domaine Mondie Merlot-Syrah 2008

I'm still full and it's more than 12 hours later.

A Double Cheeseburger OR a Cupcake

2010-01-22T19:37:00.004-05:00

The Husband is still recovering from surgery and has found out that if he soaks a baguette in soup until it's completely saturated, he can eat it because it's then soft enough. Thank God for small victories.

I'm sitting on my sofa, sipping an '07 Chilean Carmenere (it's a Santa Carolina Reserve that a colleague bought me for Christmas... see here for details on the '06) and signing up "in bulk" for this spring and summer's Canadian Running Series runs which include (for me at least), Harry's Spring Run Off, The Sporting Life 10k, The Acura Toronto 10 miler and I'm considering doing a half marathon just for fun... i'll be running up to 10 miles anyway, it's not such a stretch to throw in another three.

I'm also contemplating the nutrition information on cupcakes, more specifically, gourmet cupcakes like the ones that you may find at your local Starbucks. I was in my local Starbies this morning, getting my coffee (just a regular coffee), using my cool keychain gift card so the cashier transaction is super easy, when something yummy caught my eye... a beautiful red velvet cupcake with white frosting. I averted my eyes from the thing of beauty because I told myself that I would look up the nutrition info, just to be certain it was a manageable indulgence, then I'd go back that afternoon.

I looked up the nutrition information and do you know what I found? That innocent little red velvet cupcake is over 400 calories and over 25 grams of fat! You are better off hauling your ass to McDonalds for a DOUBLE cheeseburger which is only 430 calories and something like 23 grams of fat... at least if you do that, you'll be getting some protein in your meal.

What was even scarier is that these cupcakes are only 100 calories less than a BIG MAC.

What happened to the innocent little cupcake? The indulgence that you could work off in a half hour on the treadmill because it was just a snack?

FML.

Just call me Florence Nightingale

2010-01-20T21:03:00.004-05:00

The Husband had surgery on Monday and is now home to recover... and I'm working from home to make sure he eats, drinks, sleeps, takes pain meds, etc. He is in a lot of pain and basically moves from the bed to the sofa and back to the bed. He's trying to be brave, but given the big bandage on his neck, now is not the time to be brave...and i've told him that.

What is awesome about being my own version of Florence Nightingale, is eating his post surgery diet with him. He's into soft foods like scrambled eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, smoothies and ice cream. All of those fall into my favorite foods category and I rarely get a chance to eat ice cream so i've been shoving my face in the Tollhouse Brownie and Chocolate Cookie Dough Chunk that is in my freezer (I have very little self control when it comes to junk food which is why we won't keep it in the house).

The smoothies are lovely as well and here is the recipe for my favorite concoction of the week so far. I'm trying to be accurate with my measurements but this is how I make smoothies: I throw in all the ingredients and if it doesn't taste good or is a b*tch to blend, I add more stuff until I get it right. That being said, I think I'm pretty accurate in the measurements below.

Susan's Surgery Smoothie

1 1/2-2 cups frozen mixed fruit (I purchased the strawberries, pineapple, grape, melon, peach variety)

1 cup fat free blueberry yogurt

1/2 cup-1 cup skim milk (put in 1/2 cup and if it's super hard to blend, add in a little more milk a bit at a time until everything loosens up)

2 tbsp peanut butter (I buy the real peanuts version... none of this Skippy or Jif sh*t)

1 tbsp semi sweet chocolate chips

1 tbsp white chocolate chips

Throw it all in the blender and mix the hell out of it, adding more milk if necessary (or yogurt... just something liquidy).

It's not the healthiest smoothie in the world, but who cares, it's got fat free yogurt, fruit and skim milk in it... so technically, it's a wash.

Stuffed Chicken Breasts Wrapped in Bacon

2010-01-18T09:53:00.003-05:00

The goal of this past weekend was food, amazing food. Why? Because the Husband is having surgery today and likely won't be able to eat anything more than soup and smoothies for a while. Here was the lineup:

Friday Night: Prosecco at Remy's in Yorkville and a friend camembert with raspberry sauce, then Bellini's which was amazing... I had the tagliolini with grilled lamb and oyster mushrooms in a cream sauce and the world's greatest caesar salad. The Husband had clam chowder and rigatoni with italian sausage and lots of other yummy goodness.

Saturday Night: Stuffed chicken breasts wrapped in bacon, baked potatoes and steamed broccoli with a bearnaise sauce (recipe for stuffed chicken below). Served with an '03 Tempranillo that was really lovely.

Sunday Night: Steak, lamb/curry sausage, spicy sausage with mushrooms, heirloom potatoes, broccoli/cheese tarts, apple pie with custard. Served with a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (a good one... not a cheapy banquet hall wine).

Needless to say, I'm going on the soup and smoothie diet along with the Husband because it's either that, or starve myself to take off the weekend bloat.

Recipe for Stuffed Chicken Breasts (serving two):

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, butterflied
1/4 cup blue cheese crumbled
2 slices provolone cheese
2 slices good quality black forest ham
2 slices maple bacon
olive oil
salt/pepper

Preheat oven to 350F. Take a baking dish (we have corningware) and coat the bottom with a little olive oil. Butterfly chicken breasts. On the open chicken breast, place provolone, ham, blue cheese, fold together and seal with toothpicks (repeat on other piece of chicken). Salt and pepper the outsides of the breasts, wrap one slice of bacon around each, kind of lightly dredge in the olive oil on the baking dish and bake. Our oven sucks so it should take about 40 minutes to cook (take a meat thermometer that you trust and stick it in... if you're around 180, you're good). Our oven took longer but we started testing around 40 minutes.

Enjoy!

Peppercorn Fettuccine in Oil Sauce

2010-01-14T13:53:00.004-05:00

Last night's dinner was a go-to pasta dish in my house if one needs a lighter meal that is super fast to make.

The Husband is also quite fond of oil based sauces so we tend to make pasta with them often. Me? I'm fond of anything that has a massive amount of cheese and fat in it so I would love to eat alfredo 24/7 but know that I would be the size of a semi-detached if I did.

Enjoy and vary however you like!

Peppercorn Fettuccine in Oil Sauce

3/4 of a 340 gram pack of Peppercorn Fettuccine (you can use any kind of pasta really... I bet whole grain spaghetti would be delicious)
1/3 cup EVOO
1 red pepper, chopped
3/4 cup of broccoli, chopped
4 sun dried tomatoes, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon parsley (yes I used the dried)
1 teaspoon red chili flakes
1/2 cup chopped capricola (we used extra lean)
salt/pepper
Parmesan to sprinkle over the tops of the dishes before serving

Boil pasta according to the directions on the package. When pasta is roughly halfway done, heat another pan to medium and put in oil, red pepper, broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, garlic, parsley, red chili flakes, capricola salt and pepper. Cook all of these together on medium for a couple minutes, then turn down to low.

When pasta is finished, drain well and rinse with warm water, then toss with the oil/veg/meat. Taste a bit and see how it is... if bland, add more salt/pepper. Sprinkle parm over the top before serving.

I usually measure out a cup and a half of the pasta/veg mix for myself and about two and a half cups for The Husband.

Easiest pasta dish and really flavorful. I was going to serve a Chardonnay with this (Stone Valley from Napa, ordered from Opimian's) but we were really tired and are sort of detoxing so I decided against it.

Raspberry Swirl Brownies with White Chocolate

2010-01-13T09:19:00.005-05:00

I watch the food network every day at the gym while I'm doing cardio (it's how I learn to cook). I always catch the last bit of "Guy's Big Bite" and then the 5:30 program which last night was "Giada at Home."

Giada is one of my favorites because she makes cooking look simple and she uses short cuts that I can definitely modify/replicate in my kitchen as I don't want to spend hours in the kitch when I get home from work/gym.

Here's the latest original recipe that I pulled from Giada: Chocolate Raspberry Bars with White Chocolate and Almonds

And here's how I modified the recipe to make it a bit lower fat and sans nuts (i'm allergic):

1/2 cup no sugar added raspberry jam (you could also use 1/4 cup because I think I used too much)
1 box brownie mix (I used Low Fat Fudge Brownie Mix from Betty Crocker)
1 egg
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips, melted (double boiler)

Directions

Position a baking rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cooking spray (I used low fat butter flavor) a 8 by 8-inch baking pan.

In a small saucepan, stir the jam constantly over low heat until pourable, about 1 minute. Set aside.

In a large bowl, blend together the brownie mix, egg, and water. Stir ingredients until mixed, not any further! Fold in semi sweet chocolate chips. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Spoon the jam over the top of the brownie batter. Using a small spatula, swirl jam into the brownie batter. Bake for 27 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted about 1-inch from the edge of the pan comes out clean (use your judgement here, my oven sucks so I baked mine for 35 minutes). Spread with the melted white chocolate in any pattern you choose... I just covered the entire pan because I melted a lot of chocolate. Let cool.

I cut the brownies into bars 1 inch by 1 inch so they are bite size tastes of deliciousness. I typically avoid cutting desserts into big sizes because I don't think people need that much sugar and if anyone out there is like me, most of the time we just need a taste of something sweet and lovely. AND the smaller sized indulgence makes everyone I know feel less guilty, especially with this recipe because there is no added sugar (chocolate doesn't count) or oil.

Enjoy!

P.S. These brownies would go very well with a Tawny Port, in case anyone wants to make them as a dinner party dessert and would like to pair with a little tipple. I can envision they would go with any kind of port but I happen to favour Tawny.

Find a Wine from Winealign.com

2010-01-12T10:28:00.007-05:00

Hello again... two posts in two days... don't have a heart attack :)

In addition to the Food and Wine Matcher from Natalie MacLean, I've also added a "Find a Wine" widget from Winealign.com so that you can find a specific wine after you find the perfect match for your dish.

The Find a Wine widget is ideal for my readers living in Ontario because it can help you find a wine in your local LCBO, and if you actually visit winealign.com and search a specific varietal people from other areas of the world will get ideas on what to look for in their local wine store as well.

Enjoy!

Natalie MacLean's Food/Wine Matcher and upcoming food adventures...

2010-01-11T11:47:00.003-05:00

The Husband is back from the land of mushy peas (eew) and pork pies (yum) which means that I'm cooking again after a week of the following:

1. Chicken pot pies (the really unhealthy variety)
2. Chef Boyardee (don't judge me for loving kids food because you have guilty pleasures too)
3. Scrambled eggs made in the microwave (again, don't judge me)
4. All-Bran Buds (I love this cereal more than any other cereal...ever...)

Yes, I ate other things, but not many. I also took a little break from wine. I replaced it with vodka and Peeler Cider. Just a quick note on vodka. I started drinking this a couple months ago, replacing brown liquor in my diet. It was the one of the best decisions I've made alcohol-wise because if I accidentally over-consume (I stress "accidentally" because I'm an angel), my hangover is a lot more manageable and I'm consuming less calories!

Upcoming food adventures for dates to be determined and when I make them I'll post the recipes here: Bacon/Cheddar muffins because bacon makes everything better and I have a recipe that apparently kicks ass, bread pudding with croissants because I tried this for the first time this past weekend and I am pretty sure that if I can learn how to make this, it will always be a Husband pleaser and homemade tourtiere because how hard could it actually be?

Now onto the serious stuff:

You'll notice that I've added Natalie MacLean's Food and Wine Matcher to the blog. It's a really easy-to-use and helpful tool for ideas on food/wine pairings. I can't possibly cover everything here on the blog and my attention span isn't that great to even try so adding the tool is a way to add some more value for you all, my readers. Play with it and have fun!

Natalie is a really cool lady. I met her a few years back at a book signing for Red, White and Drunk All Over, her book. She was really funny, informative and does a great job of making wine less snotty (to use a grade-school term). A lot of critics who review wine seem very uppity about their skills, knowledge, etc. Natalie isn't like that at all so wine seems that much more approachable for everyone and I firmly believe that the more people who drink wine, the better it is for all of us selection/quality wise. Wine loving isn't an exclusive club :)

Back in the land of technology

2010-01-04T22:37:00.003-05:00

I'm back in my apartment. I've been away since the 23rd of December, only returning for an hour on the 30th to grab my ski gear and head up to Collingwood to ski at Blue Mountain. I'm happy to report that I've officially progressed to intermediate runs (the blue ones on the ski map), but I still just about pee myself before skiing down very steep terrain. This fear of heights that I have has got to go.

Before Collingwood, I was in Green Bay, WI for Christmas with my family. As always, it was full of food, wine and just all around gluttony.

Despite the skiing, I will be burning off holiday weight for the remainder of January.

I'm husband-less this week. He's off to England for business and as much as I wanted to go with, the flight prices are too rich for my blood. That and I'm saving my pennies for a ski trip to Banff, a NYC trip, a big Le Creuset pot and winter boots. The implication of a husband-less week is lack of cooking motivation...it will be a week of processed comfort foods for me and extra time at the gym.

Onto the food and wine from the trip... there is too much for one post. We went wine shopping while in the US and it was pure HEAVEN. Rodney Strong, one of my fav wineries in Sonoma that makes a wicked Pinot, stocked several more of their wines in my local store so I grabbed a bunch of those. I also have a Rioja that I kept in my GB house, aging (I'm guaranteed not to touch if I'm not in the same country).

We did a variation on our roasted potatoes recipe while away... instead of using the baby potatoes, which we couldn't find in Green Bay, we used baby reds and quartered them... holy lovely... they were so crispy and deliciously flavored on the outside and nice and fluffy on the inside. Check back in the posts for the roasted potatoes recipe and use this variation, it's well worth it.

Beef Wellington, Bordeaux and Banana Bread

2009-12-20T18:26:00.005-05:00

It's the weekend before Christmas and I've been trying to have some low key time. Time to get the house in order before vacation and time to just relax because Lord knows that once I leave Toronto for Green Bay, life will be a bit manic.

Last night, my version of low key was trying, for the first time, to make beef wellington while sipping prosecco and wrapping some last minute stocking stuffers. Before I give you the recipe for my beef welly, please know that I didn't really follow a recipe and just did what I felt was right (correcting what turned out being wrong in the process).

Susan's Beef Welly (inspired by my father-in-law)

1 Good Quality Beef Tenderloin (mine was exactly one pound, purchased from the Bloor Meat Market)

1 package of Tenderflake

1/4 cup red wine (I used a really nice Bordeaux that we got from Opimians)

2 shallots

7-8 big button mushrooms

3 slices proscuitto

1 egg

salt/pepper

Salt/Pepper the beef on all sides. Brown beef 2 minutes on all sides in butter/EVOO, set aside

Put the shallots in a food processor and chop up very well, put aside. Put mushrooms in food processor and chop up very well, put aside. In the same pan where you browned the meat, put in more oil and the shallots, cook on med for 2 minutes. Add in mushrooms, salt, pepper and cook again for 2 minutes. Add in wine and bring to a simmer... your wine should (and I say should) reduce down after about 4 minutes. IF it doesn't (as mine did not because I added in waaaaay too much), then after the 4 minutes, strain the mushroom/shallot mixture into a bowl and set aside to cool.

Roll out the Tenderflake, put a bit of the cooled mushroom mix (it's actually called a duxelle) down under the beef, put the beef down and coat the entire outside of the beef with the mushroom mixture. Cover entire piece of beef with the proscuitto slices and wrap the beef in the pastry so that there are NO HOLES and all is tight. Brush entire thing with an egg wash (whip up the egg and smear it on, preferably using a brush).

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes for med rare. I put a meat thermometer in at 27ish minutes and the temp was 130F at the sides which means med rare and about 120 in the middle which was rare. I took it out at this point and let it sit for about 10 minutes to rest, then served. We love rare meat in my house. Sides were baked potato and steamed broccoli as well as a mushroom gravy for the meat. It is SO GOOD.

The wine was from Bordeaux and if I can find the bottle, I'll post the name of it... it was really lovely. The prosecco that I was sipping on was from the valdiobenne region, click for details.

Looking back, part of the reason why my duxelle didn't turn out sooo well, was probably because I messed up somewhere in the process due to bubbly consumption. Regardless, it was delicious.

Now to the banana bread... I had some rotting bananas and my Mum always said, when you have rotting bananas, make bread. She gave me a recipe from this woman, Dorothy... but I have no idea who Dorothy actually is and I'm pretty confident that my Mum has no idea who Dorothy is either. All this aside, she makes a wicked good bread and now so do I. You'll notice it's supposed to be a banana-nut bread. I leave out the nuts because I'm allergic. I replace nuts with chocolate chips (semi sweet) and I add those in the mix at the end and whip it up. P.S. I was sober for this recipe.

Dorothy's Banana Nut Bread

Mix together:

1/2 Cup shortening

1 Cup Sugar

1 Egg

1 Cup mashed bananas (three bananas)

1 Tablespoon of lemon juice

(Sift together)

1 1/2 Cup Flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Mix all ingredients together:

Spray pans with Pam.

Bake at 350 degrees for about one hour (my oven is shit so it took 1 hour, 10 minutes)

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Life is busy

2009-12-16T17:16:00.003-05:00

The holidays are coming and I feel like they are a the cookie monster and I'm a big ass chocolate chip cookie, just waiting to be eaten up by all the craziness.

So many parties, so much shopping (mostly online this year which has been helpful yet giving me shipment tracking anxiety) and so much work yet to be done, mostly at work itself.

I haven't been cooking that much, I haven't been eating that much (I know that's weird) and I haven't been drinking that much wine (I know, now you think there is something wrong with me).

Luckily, when I have some time to breathe again, the eating, cooking and wine consuming will start again and with that comes interesting blog material. Let's hope for that time to come soon...

Dinner Parties, Biscuits and Decorating our Christmas Tree

2009-12-09T21:00:00.006-05:00

I'm posting as I'm watching Confessions of a Shopaholic so my mind isn't totally here. It's on the shoe porn that I'm watching on TV (and who could blame me).

So to the parties:

Last Friday: Dinner party at a friends where the most amazing stuffed chicken was served and I brought some delicious wine. I wasn't told exactly what dinner was so to cover the bases, I brought Silverado Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc and Cave Springs Riesling. I was going to bring the Le Clos Jordanne Chardonnay Village Reserve but to be honest, I wanted to keep that one just for me and The Husband. The Sauv Blanc went really well.

Last Saturday: Pot Luck with the most amazing homemade Chicken Biryani which if I can get the recipe for this, it will be up on this blog asap. The remainder of the night was a haze of Stoli which was quite nice and eventful.

Decorating the Christmas Tree: Tradition in my house says that decorating the Christmas Tree must be over Sparkling wine, mince pies and some sort of Christmas cookie. We don't decorate the tree unless all of these things are in place because seriously, they must make the experience that much more fun. Our tree is lopsided, fat and probably dying already, but it looks good.

Finally, the biscuits. They were made by a co-worker of mine and are delicious. On today of all days, when ice pellets were hitting me in the face every step from the subway to work (three blocks), these biscuits were heaven sent.

Basic Biscuit Recipe (in my co-workers own words)

2 cups of all purpose flour

3 tsps of sugar

3 tsps of baking powder

1 tsp of salt

1/3 cup of margarine or butter (you can also use vegetable shortening)

1 cup of milk (I prefer using 1-2% or something fattier. Butter milk works great but I haven’t done that recently. Avoid skim milk.)

1. Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl

2. Mix in margarine with pastry knife or you can use your fingers until the mixture resembles oatmeal.

3. (Optional) Throw in any extra ingredients, 1 cup of cubed cheddar, ¼ cup of cranberries, 1 cup of cubed cooked sausage…whatever floats your boat.

4. Create a well in the middle of the flour mixture and slowly add in milk while stirring with a wooden spoon until a lumpy dough forms. If the dough turns out to be too wet, sprinkle in extra flour. If the dough turns out to be too dry, add in additional milk. Usually, it takes just under a cup of milk depending on what other ingredients you are adding.

5. Form dough into a ball and kneed gently on a floured surface.

6. Roll out dough to about ¾ to 1 inch thickness.

7. Cut out biscuits. You can just cut out squares using a knife. I like to use my Jim Bean bourbon glass.

8. Place biscuits on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Parchment paper is the best thing invented for baking. Trust me if you don’t already know.

9. Bake at 375-400 F for about 20 minutes in the middle rack depending on your oven. (Tip: Preheat your oven)

10. Let cool for about 5-10 minutes.

Update coming...

2009-12-09T10:19:00.001-05:00

Good morning all...

First snowfall of the year in Toronto and I was being hit by ice pellets this morning. I'll do a proper update this evening about last weekend's parties, the amazing kabobs I made last night and a new delicious biscuit recipe plus instructions on how to decorate your Christmas tree (or Holiday tree) the correct way!

Stay warm and dry :)

The Actual Party

2009-12-02T20:22:00.003-05:00

Yanksgiving 2009 was a resounding success. We had over 50 people attend and more food than we knew what to do with. The turkey was over 26 pounds and here is a photo of it baking away, unfortunately, I completely forgot in all of the madness, to photo the rest of the food and the party. There are photos of it floating around on Facebook and I'll likely find them soon. We got really lucky with this year's turkey because it was a little lopsided which made it easy to fit another shelf on top of it, a shelf that was desperately needed for other side dishes. The creuset dish on top is full of stuffing (we made more than could fit in the bird).

Highlights of food from the party? Other than the turkey, stuffing and chocolate covered strawberries, there was an amazing mashed sweet potato dish that was slightly spicy, a potatoes romanoff dish that was lovely, broccoli cheese and the list just goes on. Also had some amazing smoked salmon and trout, gorgonzola crostinis and stuffed mushrooms. I've had to starve myself ever since to combat the extra food pounds (I keep praying for a tapeworm to suck up all my food and help me lose the extra pounds I carry but that hasn't happened yet). I do have all the recipes for these dishes so if anyone who reads this is interested, just comment and I'll send along what you need!

Highlights of wine? I wish I could tell you all. I was sipping on Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc for most of the night which is a house favorite. But there were so many bottles going and so many people that the wine became a blur. We stopped counting after we'd recycled 40 bottles of wine, at least four bottles of liquor and countless beer bottles/cans.

US Thanksgiving officially kicks off the holiday season for me, I can now get a Christmas tree, do all my shopping and Holiday Party like a rock star. Speaking of Holiday parties, the first is coming up this Saturday and I'm bringing a charcuterie and cheese tray, details on that party next week as I will definitely keep note of the wine this time.

Yanksgiving is this evening...

2009-11-28T09:42:00.003-05:00

I feel pretty good about the prep... the turkey has been in brine over night (He's a 26 pound big guy). The chocolate covered fruit/cookies are done and in the fridge... I'm going to head to the gym, then get the bird in... then basically chill until 5ish.

And the good news is that I'm fully recovered from the mango disaster on Wednesday.

Mangos+Me= circus freak show and lots of benadryl. The story is funny to tell, I'm just not at the place where I can tell it juuuust yet. The wounds are too new.

Yanksgiving details and mango monster details to come in the next week...

Yankee + Thanksgiving = Yanksgiving

2009-11-23T21:45:00.002-05:00

I'm from the US. I moved to Canada just over three years ago to do my MBA, marry my husband and build a life here. I miss quite a few things, like Target, diet mountain dew, cherry coke and US Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday of the year... food coma, NFL Football, too much alcohol, cranberries, stuffing... etc etc etc. It really is perfect. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to celebrate in the US for about five years for various reasons...mostly because when I didn't live here, I was visiting my husband to be because I had the extra vacation during the holidays (and that was a huge help because my vacation time in the States sucked).

The first year I was away from the US for my fav holiday, my boyfriend's mother (now my mother in law) felt bad that I was missing a holiday I loved, so she threw me a US Thanksgiving Party with all the fixins. It was divine and this first party had about 16 people, I was the only American.

Fast forward five years and we're still having the party for the lone American in the group except my in laws now live in a huge condo downtown, so the venue holds more people. The invite list has multiplied by six times over and the turkey is no longer a little 12 pounder. It's now at least 25 pounds every year...

So that's what I'm doing this week: Planning. My in laws and I make the turkey and some "key" dishes like stuffing, potatoes, cranberries, broc cheese... then all of our guests bring a dish that they like or is memorable for them. We set up a bar, rent tables and chairs, and throw a proper dinner party...for 50ish guests. It's manic... but it's US Thanksgiving on steroids which has basically multiplied my love of the holiday even more. I miss my blood family who can't make it to our party, but my non-blood family and friends help to make this time for me just as special.

I'm attempting to make shortbread cookies this year, which is a first... I'm also doing something a little extra for dessert: choco covered strawberries and shortbreads. It should be delicious albeit non-traditional. I don't know about all of you, but I don't need anything more than a bite of dessert after a huge meal. That and I had the most amazing pumpkin pie at Canadian Thanksgiving and don't think I can top that for US Thanksgiving, so why try?

Notes on the party to come likely next week. It takes me a few days to recover.

And we call it Yanksgiving because I'm a Yankee and it's my Thanksgiving. Hence, Yanksgiving.

Gourmet Food and Wine Expo

2009-11-23T21:23:00.002-05:00

It's been a very busy few days. Friday night was the Husband's birthday party at Whelan's Gate, then dinner party Saturday night (my buddy Carlos made an amazing duck dish with an apple and port sauce... which I picked up a Rodney Strong Estate Pinot (RRV) for...) and then yesterday, I accidentally killed my Mac and had to fix it.

You might be asking how I almost killed my Mac. Long story short, I was deleting files to free up some space and deleted the wrong file which sent my computer into a "kernel panic" and I had to erase my hard drive and start over. Luckily, I wanted to do that anyway and had backed up most of my files... loss was minimal.

So my thoughts on the Gourmet Food and Wine Expo are a bit late. I have the stack of cards on my desk, each representing one wine that I tried, my notes and when to purchase (based on availability in the LCBO). I stopped counting after 20 which totally explains my headache the following day. Food highlights? Not many... best value for dollar were the Lonestar BBQ Brisket Sandwiches and chips/queso. The Olivieri people giving out tortellini and ravioli were pretty great as well, really friendly. Wine thoughts? Loved the reps from Lifford... each one we met was friendly and poured way more wine than we deserved, also gave great recommendations on where to try wine next. Specifically, a gentleman named Stefan from Lifford poured us a delicious Coppola Merlot and then told us to head over to Chile for the Arboleda and Michel, the rep/mastermind. Michel was fabulous and very funny, the wine was great value for Chile as well. They said these wines were 'cutting edge' Chile and I have to agree.

For Ontario, we chatted with Jay Johnston, the winemaker at Hidden Bench, for a while and he was also really funny, candid and informative. Ashley from Angel's Gate was also great, giving us the 05 Single Vineyard Merlot that really took me be surprise. I could have been slightly tipsy at this point, but I swore up and down at the time that there was a blueberry pie in my glass (the fruit and buttery/toastiness were on the nose).

The memorable lady, for a pretty bad reason, was the rep pouring for France who proceeded to tell me she had French wines despite my continued asking about the region/location in France. She eventually figured out that Loire Valley was the right answer.

Worthwhile experience and I have a large wine shopping list... again.

Now onto thinking about this weekend... Yanksgiving post to follow.

The Gourmet Food and Wine Expo Hangover

2009-11-20T07:40:00.003-05:00

My notes and thoughts on The Gourmet Food and Wine Expo are coming...I just need to actually gather my thoughts and get rid of this slight headache that I woke up with (I know, imagine that?). I find it difficult to write about wine while still recovering from it.

We picked up two cases from Opimian yesterday which now means i'm back to having no room to store and i'll be hiding wine everywhere. It's an great problem to have. I'm also staring at the shipment in my dining area right now thinking it's the enemy given my head situation.

One final note before I pop off to work, I got to thinking about mascarpone cheese again this morning (while in the shower which I know is odd). We put it on grilled cheese this week, in scrambled eggs, on regular sandwiches and seriously, it just kicks up the decadence in everything. There really are a million and one uses for that creamy delight. Thank Costco for making it so cheap.

Battle of the Blades Party

2009-11-12T22:33:00.002-05:00

Cooking for seven adults is not easy... especially if you choose something like pasta which I so unwisely chose for this past Sunday's Battle of the Blades party. We've been getting together with my in-laws every Sunday to watch the show. The participants are staying in my in-laws building and have met them so please don't think we're crazy reality TV watching stalkers... we're not. These people are just apart of every day life now and they are really nice so we'd like to see them all do well.

Anyway, I was making homemade meatballs (recipe on this blog) and a sauce from scratch (crushed tomatoes, red chili flakes, a shit-ton of garlic, salt, pepper). This part of the meal turned out great. The pasta, however, isn't so easy to cool for that many people and keep fresh. I should have started boiling it during the starter, but I had no idea how long it would take and I didn't know that the guests would also bring starters... so the time between the pasta coming out of the water and actually making it to the plate was really long and I had to keep hydrating the pasta. This was waaaay too much effort and next time I'm cooking for seven, no pasta will even be considered... ever... again.

In the end, it turned out alright, but it could have been less stressful with some better planning.

After dinner, I met Katarina Witt in the lobby of their building...lovely lady and so gorgeous.

On a wine note, I'm in love with Rosso di Montalcino. Admittedly, I can afford to buy a Brunello every now and again, but if I made a habit out of this, I would have to deal with the Husband. I make it a point to try very hard and not ever deal with the Husband. Hence, I don't overspend on wine. BUT, the Rosso is a baby brunello, younger but still really lovely and amazing value for dollar. Find one in your local wine store and buy it... well worth it.

Birthday Party

2009-11-08T13:45:00.002-05:00

It was my buddy, Carlos's birthday... and we decided to chef it up for him (we as in The Husband and myself).

Menu:

Starter (courtesy of our friend Dylan): Applewood smoked cheddar (YUM), a gorgonzola, fresh baguette and stuffed mushroom caps

The Main:

Roast Beef Tenderloin with a red wine reduction sauce (holy hell this was amazing... medium rare, borderline rare and it just melted in your mouth). The Husband also whipped up some fresh hot mustard ala England style which was a really nice compliment. To make this, we just marinated the meat for a few hours in a garlic, soya sauce, seared it on all sides (brown food is good!) then popped it in the oven for about 25 minutes on 425F. The middle should be roughly 130F for medium rare. I reduced some red wine in the pan to get the bits up, then turned the heat to low and whisked in cubes of butter (about 3 tbsp total)... the sauce was rich and really nice over the beef.

Maple Bacon Stuffed Potatoes (a modification from a Jamie Oliver recipe). Take yukon golds, hollow out the insides (we use an apple core tool as it's the easiest), then roll some garlic slices and sage up inside a strip of maple bacon. Stuff the bacon in the potato, put ends back on the potato and coat it in olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake for about 45 minutes on 425F.

Broccoli Cheese: Boil broc, then cover in a standard white sauce, top with a huge amount of cheese and breadcrumbs, bake on 425F until a bit crusty.

Dessert: The Amy Sedaris Vanilla Cupcakes (again, I know... but they are way too good) from Andrea because she is now a pro at this recipe

And now the wine. We served a couple Zins with dinner, they were a nice compliment to the meat. Here's the list in the order we drank:

1. Clos du Val Zinfindel

2. Folie a deux Zinfindel

(dinner ends)

3. Rosso Piceno

4. Flat Rock Cellars Red Twisted

5. Angel's Gate Cab Franc

6. Pirates Walk Sangiovese

(we're all toasty now)

7. G & T

8. Scotch (Glenfiddich 15 Year Solara Reserve, then the 12 year because we were drunk and wouldn't appreciate anything older than a 12 year at this point).

Throwing another dinner party this evening to watch The Battle of the Blades... homemade spaghetti and meatballs are on the agenda... stay tuned! And I'm pretty sure I know what you're thinking... go ahead and laugh, because yes, we watch Battle of the Blades. There is a story behind this but I'll tell that tomorrow.

Amy Sedaris's Vanilla Cupcakes

2009-11-03T13:46:00.002-05:00

My friend Andrea made Amy Sedaris's Vanilla Cupcakes over the weekend. Apparently, these bad boys were voted second best cupcakes in the city by New York Magazine. Here's the recipe which I will be trying soon:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Amy-Sedariss-Vanilla-Cupcakes-236125

The recipe says makes 24...but both Amy and Andrea only got 18 a piece.

They were divine... seriously...

So divine that I now have Amy's book on hold at the library: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence because let's face it, I like having parties under the influence.

Napa "Nightlife" Tasting from iYellow Wine Club

2009-10-27T22:45:00.004-04:00

The Name: Nightlife http://www.iyellowwineclub.com/2009/08/nightlife.html#at

The Venue: The Great Hall at Queen and Dovercourt

The Wine: All Napa... 20 wineries pouring over 45 wines.

I was in heaven...until it got really warm in the room and then I felt like I was in hell. But a good kind of hell, the kind with delicious wine.

We tried most of the wineries present and here is the list and my thoughts on each:

Beaulieu Vineyard--really enjoyed the Georges de Latour Reserve Cab Sauv, as my husband put it, this was a man's wine and was really strong
Boeschen Vineyards--OMG... their bordeaux blend was awesome, just the right amounts of oak to make it lip smacking... unfortunately, only 190 cases were made so we're not getting this one in Ontario
Chappellet Winery and Vineyard--Loved the cab sauv that had a hint of malbec... gave it a really nice hint of blueberry and coffee but ever so slight
Chimney Rock Winery--didn't try... the rep wasn't very friendly
Clos Du Val--My favorite winery there, loved every second of all their wines and the Merlot is coming back to the LCBO in the next two weeks
Cuvaison Estate Wines-- Loved their Pinot and I think we can still get it in the LCBO
Frias Family Vineyard--I'm sure they are lovely, but in this setting, they just felt overpriced for what we were tasting
John Anthony--really lovely... was very impressed
PEJU--The reps at this table were awesome, really friendly. The sauv blanc was delicious, crisp and worth every penny
Pine Ridge Vineyards--the cab sauv was like a dream...made me crave a bloody steak so badly
Robert Mondavi Winery--they were there, but we didn't go... we've been to the winery in Napa and felt like we weren't missing anything by not tasting
Rutherford Hill Winery--the rep wasn't very friendly so we didn't try anything
Terlato Family Vineyards--the rep recommended the Angels Peak Bordeaux Blend and to be honest, I found it a bit wimpy
Trefethen Family Vineyards--enjoyed the Chard very much
Tres Sabores--sauv blanc was really refreshing, hints of ripe citrus

Now I'm drinking massive amounts of water... if anyone reads this and is pissed at my lack of tasting notes, sorry, there was a lot of people there and it was really hard to make notes. I know the reps were really tired too, they'd been doing seminars all day for the LCBO and I'm sure that was exhausting... so thank you to all of them should any read this.

O and to the guy wearing the black crushed velvet blazer: you looked like a wanker.

And to the suits who were ostentatiously waving their arms and speaking really loud about their fabulous lives: you are wankers too. I'm amazed people still behave like that.

Blue Cheese Burgers

2009-10-21T09:58:00.002-04:00

Quick post on Blue Cheese Burgers and Waupoos Cider ...

Burgers:
1 pack lean ground beef
loads of blue cheese crumbles
three cloves garlic
splash of Worcestershire
sprinkles of red chili flakes
salt/pepper

Mix the hell out of all those ingredients (take off your rings ladies and get the hands dirty), grill up on med-high heat for about 3-4 min a side...less if you like them really rare, melt some cheese on them (I used marble cheddar) and decorate with whatever condiments you like... but the blue cheese is important... I used probably about a 1/4 cup. Thick, juicy and amazing...

I served these with fries loaded in black pepper and spicy potato wedges (McCains... you can get them at any grocery). I would have made my own but let's face it, sometimes cheating in the kitchen is necessary on a weekday after work and the gym.

Had a Waupoos cider with these burgers and the combo was really refreshing and satisfying. Waupoos is a local Ontario cider and if you dabble in cider, it's a must try.

Cooking with Mascarpone Cheese

2009-10-19T21:23:00.002-04:00

I love Mascarpone cheese and you can use it in so many different dishes to just kick up the richness and make the dish that much more decadent. BUT, mascarpone is expensive and I don't buy it often because it's so expensive. Until now... I found it at Costco over the weekend for 1/2 the price that it is in the grocery stores! I was so excited, I almost squee'd in the middle of the deli section. Yup, that's right, I'm a food nerd.

This is the recipe to my little pasta dish from this evening...

1 small box linguine or peppercorn fettuccine (whichever you like better)

1 jar tomato sauce (I used PC Blue Menu Tomato, Mushroom, Garlic sauce)

1 tbsp Italian seasoning

1 cup sliced button mushrooms

1/2 cup orange pepper

2 chicken breasts chopped into 1cm by 1 cm pieces

3 crushed cloves garlic

salt/pepper

1/3 cup mascarpone cheese

asiago to top off the sauce and then again to top off the dishes

Cook chicken for a couple minutes in olive oil over med heat, add mushrooms, peppers, crushed garlic and Italian seasoning plus a bit of salt/pepper. Toss for a couple minutes until the chicken looks cooked. Turn heat down to low. Add tomato sauce, mix throughout, then add in mascarpone until melted. Add in asiago to top the the sauce and combine until melted as well. I eyeball the cheese to be honest because I feel you can never add enough cheese. Once the cheese is melted and the kitchen smells divine, serve over the al dente pasta, then add some more asiago to garnish.

We served this with Fielding Estate's Red Conception which was really nice given the amount of cheese in the dish.

For dessert, my new favorite low calorie low fat slice of decadence. I'm in the grocery store today after my workout and I'm starving...literally feel like I could destroy the baguette that I've just picked up to serve with my pasta. It's these times especially, when I'm susceptible to dessert and instead of picking up the Half Baked Ben and Jerry's that I was drooling at, I picked up the Wildberry Frozen Yogurt Low Fat Drumsticks. Holy Effing Delicious and I have no calorie/fat guilt. Buy them, they rock.

And in case you're thinking that I'm talking about no food guilt when I just gave you all a recipe using really amazing, yet fatty cheese. Yes, I understand the contradiction and in my cheese and wine soaked world, daily workouts negate those indulgences but don't usually negate dessert as well...so a really great, yet fairly healthy dessert is just a bonus. A yummy bonus which is the best kind.

Pizza, Cookies and Watching Football with the Boys

2009-10-07T21:35:00.003-04:00

First off, the recipes for His and Her Homemade Pizzas... a favorite in my household because we each take a pizza (the pack of premade dough comes with two).

Her Pizza:

1 whole wheat dough

1/2 can sauce

sprinkle of italian seasoning

mozza to top

a bit of cheddar to top

sliced mortadella

sliced proscuitto

sliced sundried tomatoes

sliced bocconcini

Obviously you put the sauce down first, then the sprinkle of italian seasoning, then the meat/veg, then the cheese with the bocconcini on the very top. Bake on 400 for 10 minutes or so.

His Pizza

(same dough/sauce instructions except he adds italian seasoning AND chili flakes). Then we put on the turkey pepperoni (because it's healthier), then chopped montreal smoked meat, then chopped red peppers, then mozza and a bit of asiago.

Both were delicious and easily dinner and next day lunches for both of us.

Now the cookies. Last week on two separate occasions, men dressed up as Harlequin characters gave me Lifestyle brand cookies in the subway, packaged in boxes that looked like Harlequin books. The cookies were vanilla latte flavored, low fat, low cal and delicious. They also came with a coupon. So, for the first time ever, I purchased something that a street team gave me as a sample... except vanilla latte was sold out. I chose blueberry brown sugar with flax instead and holy hell am I glad that I did because these low fat cookies are divine. DIVINE. A health food dream.

Finally, I had a small get together with the boys for Monday night football. I made them enchiladas and purchased chips and queso from Moe's on the way home (if you live in Toronto or the States, Moe's is really delicious fast food tex mex). Add some beer for the guys and an Orvieto for me and that was a really nice way to spend Monday night. I know enchiladas typically aren't a football finger food, but they were spicy and savoury and I rec'd no complaints... so next time you do Monday night football, why not make it a Mexican night as well?

That's all for now... am attending a masquerade bachelorette party this weekend so I'm sure good stories will come from that. Stay tuned...

Three Cheese Risotto with Roasted Pork Tenderloin

2009-10-03T21:26:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow I'm running the CIBC Run for the Cure. It's a 5k and all of the money raised goes to breast cancer treatment and research. I needed to have a nice carby dinner this evening...5k isn't much, but I want to beat my previous time so I need to take care of myself. I also destroyed my liver last night with a gallon (at least) of red wine so I'm a bit tender.

The menu: Three Cheese Risotto with Roasted Pork Tenderloin and Garlic Cheese Bread

Here are the recipes and enjoy!

Three Cheese Risotto (soooooooo yummy and rich)

1.5 cups arborio rice

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp olive oil

3/4 cup finely chopped leek (and you could probably do a half cup if you don't like anything in the onion family, which I don't)

1 clove garlic minced

125 ml white wine (I used an orvieto)

1 tsp mustard (I used Kozlik's XXX hot)

Just over 1 liter of veggie stock (I bought a 900 ml carton and an additional can)

1 cup cheese (I used cheddar, mozzarella and asiago)

Salt/Pepper to season

Melt butter/add oil to pan over lowish heat, add garlic and leeks and cook until softened.

Add rice and stir for about one minute. Add in wine and mustard, stir stir stir and when wine has been absorbed, start ladling in hot stock (make sure it's hot). Ladle in one at a time, waiting to add ladles until previous is absorbed. Cook rice until al dente which is about 18-20 minutes. Stirring the entire time.

Add in cheese, stir and let melt, add in salt/pepper. Spoon immediately into warm dishes, shred a bit more asiago over the risotto. Serve with the pork medallions.

Roast Pork

Pork tenderloin was marinating in ranch dressing for an hour or so. Preheat oven to 375. Sear on all sides until it's browned, then put in oven and cook for 10ish minutes, until the middle is 145 degrees. Take out, cover and let sit for 10 minutes so all the juices get locked in. Cut into medallions.

Garlic Cheese Bread

I had a dried multi grain baguette in my fridge so i cut it into toasts, rubbed a clove of garlic on the surface, then shredded mozzarella on them. Bake 400 for a few minutes until toasted/cheese is melted.

Serve with the Orvieto you used for the risotto!

His and Her dinners

2009-09-30T20:56:00.002-04:00

The husband gave me his illness. Luckily, I'm tougher than he is so I've been almost fully functional, including keeping up with my gym regime so I don't pack on the pounds while I'm feeling like crap (the double whammy of hell as far as I'm concerned).

And in the midst of all this, I have two fabulous recipes to share. The title of the post is "His and Her dinners" because yesterday I made dinner (I was feeling energetic and optimistic about my health) and today, the Husband did (because I over did it yesterday and started feeling pretty bad again today).

My meal: Mushroom Alfredo with Steak and Asiago

1/2 pack of peppercorn fettuccine

1 jar alfredo sauce (the Classico brand is quite nice)

4 large button mushrooms

10 or so slices of thinly sliced asiago cheese (I used a potato peeler to slice them from the block)

2 beef tenderloin medallions

2 cloves garlic

Season steaks with salt and pepper, chop mushrooms. Melt butter in a pan over med heat, cook steaks roughly 3 minutes a side if you like them rare-med rare. Throw in mushrooms after the first minute or two. Remove steaks and set aside so they rest and suck all the juices in. Put mushrooms in the alfredo sauce, which you are heating over low heat in a sauce pan. Add in crushed garlic to the sauce. Boil noodles until al dente while all this is going on. After steaks have rested for about 5 minutes, slice. Place pasta and sauce on plate, put steaks over the top and then put the asiago slices over the steaks so they melt a little bit and the presentation looks quite nice. Seriously good comfort food.

His meal: Mas Macho Meatballs (love the stereotypical man recipe name)

Find his recipe here, on the Men's Health Magazine website.

I have to admit, the meal was really delicious, the healthy comfort food that I needed. It was also quite quick for anyone on a time crunch. No wine to report with this dinner because it's a hockey night for him and a "fix my body" night for me.

I need to carry label lifters with me...

2009-09-27T21:57:00.003-04:00

I carry a corkscrew with me wherever I go. You really never know when one will be necessary and it is a real travesty to discover that you're unable to open a bottle of wine.

Lately, I've discovered that it's a real effing tragedy when I have a great bottle of wine somewhere, get home to write about it and can't remember the name, producer, year, etc. I have one of two options: take a photo of the label with my blackberry, or carry label lifters with me.

Both options are awkward but at least one of them is going to have to be put in the playbook.

The latest bottle of wine that I can't remember jack about was a chianti classico. Had it last night with tri-colored bow ties, spicy sauce, broc, cauliflower, lemon pepper chicken, 10 year old cheddar and an amazing Quebec brie. This was pre-race dinner...not for me, I was only doing a 5k (for the Assaulted Women's Helpline in Toronto, a hugely underfunded charity doing great work) which I could do in my sleep...it was for a friend who was running the marathon today.

I wish that I could remember the details of this wine... will hunt around my dad-in-laws cellar...perhaps he has another bottle.

OR, I could convince him to make dinner like this again next Saturday because the CIBC Run for the Cure is on October 4th... again, 5k... but I'm trying to run for my personal best time and will need some yummy food and wine the night before as fuel. OK OK, I won't need the wine but you can bet your ass I'm going to be drinking it just the same.

The Husband is sick...

2009-09-23T22:48:00.003-04:00

Which means no vino.

We did have some comfort food for dinner though: Breakfast Burritos

Now I'm pretty sure that you all are thinking Breakfast Burritos are not comfort food. I would disagree. There isn't anything quite like spicy, cheese scrambled eggs wrapped in a white (unhealthy) flour tortilla. Next to grilled cheese and tomato soup, this is a real winner in our house.

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New subject: Thank you to the people who left me a comment on this blog yesterday... it was my first. I know people read this because I see the traffic numbers, but the comment was a real treat. I was almost giddy... my co-workers were scared.

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On a different subject again, I'm getting a pedicure tomorrow. My nail salon called to confirm my appointment today (Fabulous Nail Salon in Toronto) and here is how the conversation went. I'm sharing it with you because I found it rather funny, and my colleagues who sit around me found it rather intriguing as well.

Me: Hello

Nails: Hi... we would like to confirm your appt tomorrow.

Me: Ok, i'll be there

Nails: It's Martini Thursday, would you like to participate?

Me: Ummm, yeah. (picture this in a valley girl/why the hell are you asking me this of course i'd like to participate kind of tone)

Nails: Ok, we just want to get a feel for supplies

Me: Well, I'll participate (shocked that someone has even called to ask this question and really suppressing the urge to tell her to "stock up").

And that's where the conversation ended. It got me to thinking, wouldn't all appt phone conversations be better if the person confirming asked you if you wanted a martini with your appt?

A Zin and Blend from California

2009-09-22T22:42:00.003-04:00

I received a few inquiries from yesterday's post. Yes, I do have wine "hidden" all throughout my house, currently in two closets, fridge and wine fridge. I was not kidding.

Added two more amazing wines to the collection today. Oddly enough, immediately after my workout. I workout so I can eat great food and drink great wine, I wasn't kidding when I said that a while back either.

These two purchases were really exciting for me because the I've been to both wineries in Napa and typically, we can't get these wines in Canada. These are special to me, I drank them frequently back home and the second wine provided the first official moment that I can remember where I sat back and really thought about how much I love wine.

Wine One: Clos du Val Zinfindel 2006 It's been in Canada before, but in small quantities. Click for details from the LCBO and get it while it's hot.

Wine Two: Menage a Trois Red 2007 Don't be fooled by the gimmick name, it's pleasantly surprising. See deets here.

Both wines taste of dark fruit, and both have hints of pepper...my absolute favorite characteristic in wine. I love the hint of anything spicy or peppery on the palate. Combined with rich dark fruit and a little bit of oak ... it's really my kind of flavor.

Would use the word "erotic" to describe it, but then I just sound silly. My advice, pick them both up at the store and see for yourself. Combine them with some grilled, smoky meats and then, in theory, you should really notice what I'm talking about.

I need a bigger wine fridge...

2009-09-21T21:37:00.002-04:00

My little 30 bottle wine fridge is no longer cutting it. I need at least a 50 bottle holder.

I'm starting to feel like my grandmother during the depression. She apparently hid money everywhere in her house... that's how I am with wine right now. It's literally everywhere that is out of the sunlight, in a cool dark place. The only place where it's not is in my mattress.

No wine drinking tonight. I am taking a day off to recuperate and detox my body from the weekend's endeavors. The fondue party we attended on Saturday was like marathon wine and food consumption. In case you think I'm kidding, here are the wines we had (not in any order and I personally did not have any white although I supplied a bit):

1. Rosso Piceno 2008 (decanted for a couple hours, it's young): went well with the beef and veal

2. Angel's Gate Vidal Blanc: was amazing with the pork and veg

3. Trius Cab Sauv (today's wine of the day) x 2: again, complimented the beef and veal

4. Peller Estates Cab Sauv: getting a wee tipsy at this point and I won't even pretend to tell you that I was thinking how well it paired

5. Wyndham Estates Shiraz: see explanation for Peller

The base for the fondue was white wine with loads of spices, but the mains were cloves and cinnamon sticks. I can't even begin to tell you how aromatic it was and how lovely it made all of the foods taste.

If you live in Toronto, you live in a city that seriously lacks fondue so pick up a pot and have a party of your own. Email me and I can get you the base recipe if you need it.

Fondue is a lost art, let's revive it.

Muffins, Apple Crisp and Chicken Enchiladas

2009-09-20T22:04:00.004-04:00

It's been a busy day of hungover cooking. We attended a fondue party last night and there was much wine consumed... too much but it was o so good.

We have an influx of apples due to the apple picking adventure at Chudleigh's yesterday and I felt it important to make an apple crisp. AND, I have this amazing whole wheat muffin recipe that I had to try... and then we needed to eat dinner and enchiladas seemed like a really yummy and spicy way to cap the evening.

Here are the recipes for all! Highly recommend each.

Apple Crisp from Betty Crocker:

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes.aspx/apple-crisp

Whole Wheat Muffins from my baking genius friend, Andrea Santos:

1 1/2 cups of flour (I use whole wheat)
3/4 cups of sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
milk

1. Mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder
2. Put vegetable oil and egg in a measuring cup. Add milk until all ingredients equal 1 cup
3. Add liquids to flour mix and stir. It's Ok if it's a little lumpy at this point.
4. Add blueberries/chocolate chips/whatever you're going to add. when you stir this time, there should be few to no lumps.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 400.

Makes 6 muffins

Chicken Enchiladas:

1 package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1/2 can black beans

about 1/2 cup salsa (pick your fav brand)

2 cups cheese (we used sharp cheddar today)

1 can enchilada sauce (we use hot)

6 tortillas

Preheat oven to 425F. Cook the chicken over med heat until cooked all the way through, add in salsa and the black beans and mix. Spoon a little bit of enchilada sauce in the bottom of your baking dish (we use a corningware). Assemble your enchiladas and put them seam side down in your pan. By assemble, I mean put some of the chicken mixture into the tortilla with a little bit of cheese, fold and put in dish. Pour the remainder of the enchilada sauce over the assembled enchiladas, put the remainder of the cheese over them as well. Bake for about 25 minutes, serve with sour cream.

Happy cooking!!

The million and one uses for a store bought rotisserie chicken...

2009-09-10T20:42:00.003-04:00

Just kidding...there aren't a million and one uses. You can feed a helluva lot of people with a store bought rotisserie chicken though. See this link for someone else who enjoyed the chicken http://foodto.blogspot.com/2009/06/metro-rotisserie-chicken-deal.html.

I've been kind of quiet on the food front since my parents left because I'm tired. I need some time to catch up, hence the store bought chicken. I also grabbed some sides, pasta salad and couscous salad. I'm pretty amazed though because the chicken lasted for five meals...it was like the neverending meat producing chicken.

What was more interesting was the couscous I purchased... I have got to dry this recipe..couscous, chopped bell peppers (red/yellow), chopped sun dried tomatoes and chopped black olives... it was amazing and I have to figure out what else was in this because it made my mouth water.

Having a chenin blanc from Wisconsin of all places...my parents brought it with. It's not terrible either.

Twas the night before the Parental visit...

2009-09-03T22:42:00.003-04:00

My mum and dad are visiting tomorrow for four days. They haven't been back to Toronto since our wedding (2.5 years)... so I've been planning and cleaning for weeks so that I can show them a good time and hopefully make them want to come back more often.

We've got dinner plans, BBQ plans, shopping plans, sporting plans, etc... but reflecting back on all of these plans, they revolve around food and wine. Although I try to be a well rounded individual, most of my thoughts always end up back at food and wine.

So instead of telling you what i'm going to be doing with the Parentals (because we'd both be bored in blogworld), I'm going to share highlights of what we'll be eating and drinking....

1. Friday: Homemade Quiche ala Me. I haven't decided what's going in them yet, but I've been craving fresh baked quiche for weeks

2. Saturday: St. Lawrence Market Bacon Buns!!!! Also going to stock up for our trip to wine country and grab some fresh breads, cheeses and cold cuts for the road. Love St. Lawrence... it's like Christmas every time I walk in.

3. Saturday Wines: see a previous post and watch twitter if you care... it's going to be amazing

4. Sunday: BBQ with friends and i'm marinating two pork tenderloins and spare ribs! One of the marinades will be soya, garlic, salt, pepper, teriyaki sauce... the other will be balsamic and rosemary. I'm totally excited for grilled, marinated pork tenderloin; wine and rye/diets.

5. Baked Brie in Puff Pastry! I've got a wheel of brie that i'm going to cut in half and crush some garlic inside, then putting it back together, drizzling honey over the top and wrapping it in puff pastry... baking for about 20 min on 400 and it's melty and full of sweet and savoury flavor!

6. The Yellow Griffin... best burgers in Toronto.

And that is just a sampling... full wine report to come next week.

I'll be chaining myself to a treadmill come Tuesday.

Soccer Quick Dinner Night

2009-09-01T20:38:00.002-04:00

When the Husband has soccer, we have quick dinners. We try to make these quick dinners fairly healthy and just as delicious as if we'd had loads of time. Here's tonight's recipe:

Pasta with Red Sauce and Turkey Sausage, we'll call it Soccer Sausage Pasta

1/2 pack of turkey Italian sausage (usually three sausages)

1/2 pack of any pasta you like... we had linguine

4-5 mushrooms (buttons will do)

two cloves garlic

1 tbsp chili flakes

1 can crushed tomatoes

salt/pepper

Cook the sausages, remove from heat and cut into small thin slices. Put some olive oil in a pan on med heat, saute chopped garlic, mushrooms and chili flakes for a couple minutes. Add in crushed tomatoes and sliced sausages. Let it simmer for about five minutes on low heat and serve over pasta with some parmesan. A baguette is quite nice as well.

This makes a meal or two of leftovers as well. I hate getting my lunch from restaurants because it's really unhealthy and frankly, expensive, so I'll gladly eat leftovers.

My Favorite Homemade Thai Dish

2009-08-31T21:54:00.003-04:00

Last night was V-Fest and a very late home arrival due to the Nine Inch Nails playing an hour longer than planned...not complaining because the concert was amazing, but it is what it is.

So tonight was not a wine night (i'm v. tired and sort of feel run down) even though the wine of the day is Bellingham's Shiraz Viognier. I had this wine for the first time through a close friend and colleague who loves to experiment and fine wine gems just as much as I do.

Tonight was, however, my favorite Thai Dish's night. I'm not exactly sure what to call it because it's kind of like a red/peanut curry dish... here's the recipe:

1 pack of boneless skinless chicken thighs

1 head of broccoli

1/2 a pepper (we use red bell)

3 TBSP of Garlic Red Chili Sauce (A Taste of Thai does a good one)

1-2 TBSP peanut butter

1 can light coconut milk

Salt/Pepper to season

Saute the chicken whole until pretty much cooked through (med heat), add in the veg when the chicken isn't pink on the outside and cool the veg until the chicken is done. Don't worry about the bottom of the pan getting bits all over it (we use the stainless for this recipe). Remove chicken and veg, put aside and pull chicken apart into small pieces by hand once you can touch it without burning yourself. In the same pan with all the bits and still on med heat, add in the coconut milk and peanut butter... stir until the peanut butter dissolves. Then add the chili sauce, stir until dissolves and bring sauce to a boil, all the bits should come up off the bottom of the pan when you're stirring. Add back the chicken and veg, turn heat down to low and simmer for about 15 minutes. Serve over jasmine rice.

This dish is really lovely and fairly healthy because we use light coconut milk and watch the portions on the rice. AND the leftovers rock... the flavors are more intense the next day.

2006 Folie a Deux Zinfandel with Dinner

2009-08-30T11:05:00.005-04:00

I don't typically do a wine of the day on weekends because I'm spent from the week. However, I do drink a lot of wine on the weekends and last night was no exception. We started with the 2006 Folie a' Deux Zinfandel because we were having marinated, grilled pork chops, roasted potatoes and broccoli cheese bake.

Why did I choose this wine? Because we didn't just have one kind of marinated chop. I'd been to the Bloor Meat Market earlier (Side Note: best best best butcher in the city and well worth the drive if you don't live nearby. The staff there are seriously lovely,), but anyway, I came out of the market with three different kinds of marinated chops: mango mustard, thai coconut and jerk spices. I needed a wine that could potentially pair well with the pork sampler platter as well as the garlic in the potatoes and cheddar sauce which is just a standard white sauce with melted cheese over the top (we typically don't make sauce from packs in my house), on the broccoli.

The meal and the wine were divine. The fruit in the wine matched well with the sweet and savoury spiced pork and complimented the richness in flavor of the two side dishes.

After I'd spent the majority of the day cleaning and preparing for my parents' visit, this meal and the relaxation that followed were the perfect end to the day and a perfect remedy for my ailing muscles.

What doesn't match well with this wine, dinner and relaxation is gambling against the Husband. I wasn't paying attention after all the wine and food coma, so he cleaned me out. Good thing what's his is mine!

Wine of the Day: Malivoire 2008 Pinot Gris

2009-08-27T20:50:00.002-04:00

I've been talking to several people about the wines of the day, my twitter feed, my blog, etc so much so that people are volunteering opinions on the wine of the day and ideas.

Today's is the Malivoire 2008 Pinot Gris and was a suggestion, again, from my CEO. I'd visited this winery several times and have also had this wine and agreed that it was wine of the day worthy.

My parents are visiting from Green Bay, WI next week and we're going to take them to Ontario's wine county (Niagara) so they can sip the locals and enjoy the beautiful scenery. On the list of wineries to visit (and those that I recommend any of you visit if you're in the area):

There are dozens of other wineries to visit, but I tend to enjoy these the most.

It's a light post this evening, I must get back to the Husband who surprised me with two new pairs of "Chucks" this evening, one in black and the other in red... what a man :)

Lanson Black Label Brut Champagne

2009-08-26T19:33:00.003-04:00

The wine of the day, Lanson Black Label Brut Champagne. I had this champagne during the advanced wine course that I took at George Brown College, here in Toronto. The GBC continuing education program has loads of wine classes and I've been apart of the two most critical: wines and advanced wines. I say critical because for a wine lover and person who is seriously committed to all things fermented grape, these classes were top notch.

We had Lanson as an example of a great value for dollar Champagne. It's not Veuve or Pommery, but it's really yummy just the same and easier on your pocketbook. It's a mix of pinot noir and chardonnay and if my notes from this wine are correct, it had some green apple, vanilla and the bubbles/bubble streams (mousse) lasted forever.

I use "yummy" and "lip smacking" to describe a lot of wines. I know this and I'm working on better adjectives. Mainly, I'm breaking out all of my old wine notebooks and looking at the volumes of tasting notes because my friends take my word for it when I call something yummy (I don't drink swill), but the general public probably wants more proof.

As I said when I first started this blog, I love it when I can taste a wine then close my eyes, sit back and think, "Damn that's good." I did that with Lanson, then proceeded to drink a lot more of it because let's face it, there is just something about bubbles that equates to happiness.

Back Online! Wine of the day...

2009-08-25T21:51:00.003-04:00

I came home this evening, ready for some quiet time to read my new library books (I finally got a library card!) and to ice my shoulder... sprained something while trying to fend off the wine and food pounds at the gym.

Also wanted to do a quick wine of the day post... but no Internet. My wireless signal was nil. However, I've iced, fed myself some roasted red pepper soup and had enough energy to futz with the wireless and am back online.

Nothing amazing food wise today except one of the library books I loaned was Nigella Express and i'm totally stoked because it's amazing so far. I'm going to be modifying a lot but she's giving me pretty great raw materials.

Wine of the day is 2005 Delheim Shiraz from South Africa. My CEO, who is from South Africa, purchased this for me on my birthday (because everyone knows that the quickest way to my heart is through fermented and aged grapes). Here's a link to a review and happy drinking, it's delicious.

Chicken and Tofu Stir Fry

2009-08-24T21:01:00.003-04:00

The wine of the day is Angels Gate 2007 Mountainview Chardonnay. I like this because it's really crisp, refreshing and just enough fruit on the palate mixed with a little bit some mineral (I've always been bad at identifying minerals so I can't tell you which).

Having a really quick stir fry for dinner with sesame sauce, soy sauce and garlic chili sauce. Serving with brown rice, so all in all, pretty healthy.

Stir Fry Contents:

One pack boneless skinless chicken breast chopped into 1/2 inch pieces (diameter)

1/2 red pepper chopped

1/2 yellow pepper chopped

One head broccoli chopped

4 large button mushrooms cut into slices

One pack of PC brand extra firm tofu, cut into about the same size pieces as the chicken. Click here to know exactly what i'm talking about.

Sauces: my choices today are sesame, soya and garlic chili

Saute chicken on med head first until almost cooked through, then add the veg except the mushrooms... add the mushrooms and tofu with about five minutes left until service. Add the sauces as soon as you put the veg in and honestly, I just eyeball the sauce but tend to not put in more than a tablespoon of garlic chili sauce because it's really hot. Serve over brown rice.

A note on leftovers: I'm cooking for two and this basically feeds four... the leftovers are awesome so gladly take this for lunch the next day.

BBQ Chicken and Roasted Potatoes/Carrots and Hidden Bench Nuit Blanche

2009-08-23T17:57:00.004-04:00

I took a survey of my wine fridge this weekend and other than desperately needing to go shopping for the "everyday drinkers," I realized that I have a bit of a treasure trove in there right now. Unfortunately, I told my husband about the treasure trove and he made me take out one of my favorite bottles this evening to enjoy with our meal: Hidden Bench Nuit Blanche 2006. Visit the site here: http://www.hiddenbench.com/. Hidden Bench is a joint venture between Vincor and Boisset and has been producing wines not so typical to Ontario. I drink local pretty often and there are some gems that you can find in Ontario, but there are a few wineries, like Hidden Bench, that seem to be a step ahead.

Ontario doesn't grow certain grapes well, we just don't have the climate for a grape like Cab Sauv, for instance, because we don't have enough hot/dry days to really bring out the complexity and fruit in the grape. So when producers use this grape, one tends to get a bit of green pepper hint on the palate. Not the case with Hidden Bench. I don't know what their winemaker does, but I consider he and his team Wine Gods among men.

So we're drinking the Nuit Blanche tonight, which I believe scored in the 90's. I lament drinking this because we can't get this particular wine any longer, but I rejoice because it's an effing good wine.

We're eating BBQ chicken with it, made with a special blend of BBQ sauce and the chicken has been marinating for quite some time. We're grilling it on the grill pan, 8 min or so per side and basting it with BBQ the entire time.

We're also having roasted baby reds and carrots. The veg has been marinating in a combo of olive oil, garlic, chili flakes, worcestershire, seasoning salt, pepper and horseradish. Roast for 20-30 min on 425 F.

Seriously delicious on all angles and huge flavor.

Peanut Butter Pancakes

2009-08-23T12:58:00.002-04:00

It's been a quiet couple of days for food and wine. We celebrated my in-laws 38th wedding anniversary on Friday at PJ O Brien's and saw an amazing local band called Fiddlestix. Every member of the band is really talented but the lead is an electric fiddle player that is just amazing. Visit the website and if you're in southern Ontario, I highly recommend catching a show.

The recipe for this morning is Peanut Butter Pancakes. Inspired by the show, Cooking for Real, on the food network, I have made some modifications. On the show, the host makes the pancake batter from scratch and I must admit that I'm not a fan of that (because i'm lazy in the mornings), nor did I have the time.

So here's the recipe (and I was cooking for two):

Buttermilk pancake batter, mix up so it's a bit thick. Beat in one egg and about 1/4 cup of melted peanut butter. If the mix seems a bit runny, you can always add a bit more batter until you feel it's thick enough. Whip it all up, grill it up on the skillet (a hot skillet) and serve with butter, jam and maple syrup. I'm a big fan of topping the pancakes with jam but the husband uses maple syrup and seems quite happy.

One thing of note, these pancakes seem to cook faster than normal pancakes so watch them and be ready to flip probably within a minute.

I also served some maple smoked bacon with them and that was quite a nice compliment.

Hopefully more food and wine this week... I'm starting to have wine withdrawal.

No recipe tonight, but there is wine

2009-08-19T23:38:00.002-04:00

I was out for dinner with my mother in law tonight, oddly enough, teaching her about social networking. We had pan-asian and it was yummy... but as good as the food was, the wine was yummier and I now have a wine of the day for tomorrow.

But, back to today. The wine of the day is the 2005 Burrowing Owl Cab Sauv... going for a cool $57 in the LCBO. It's one of the most expensive wines of the day that I've posted but well worth it. I found out about this wine from a couple of friends who toured the Okanagan on their honeymoon and I was reminded of what a gem the Okanagan is by The Thirsty Traveler in this episode.

I was in the gym, watching the food network as usual, when The Thirsty Traveler came on... how fitting for a Friday. Anyway, if you can afford it and more so, you can find it, try anything by Burrowing Owl.

Wine of the day: Amendment to yesterday's homemade burger post

2009-08-18T22:41:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I said that the wine of the day for today, was perfect with the burgers and pasta salad last night (yes, I understand that is a convoluted sentence). So, to follow up, the wine of the day is Blackstone California Merlot 2006. It was def new world kind of fruity but it had a rich taste and definitely helped to accent the deep flavor in the burgers.

It's easy drinking and great value: http://www.blackstonewinery.com/

And the LCBO Link for my Ontario readers: Blackstone Merlot

Happy Drinking!

Quick and Easy Indian

2009-08-18T22:15:00.003-04:00

Tonight I made what can best be described as Indian style tacos where the filling was chicken tikka and rice flavored with tikka masala sauce and garam masala seasoning and the "tortilla" in this case was naan. Don't ask me how I came up with this... I've never had roti, but I was hoping that this would turnout somewhat similar. It did really look like an Indian taco in the end.

Delicious, absolutely. Practical and easy, yes. Was it real Indian cuisine... probably not, but we'll just call it, the "I just got home from the gym and need to get dinner on the table in a half hour Indian." The Husband had soccer tonight so a quick dinner was necessary.

All I did was cook up some chicken breast in tikka masala sauce (PC brand was perfect), bake some naan, cook up some rice (then season with tikka sauce/garam masala powder/salt/pepper), put this all in the naan like it's a taco and be on your merry way.

While i'm talking about this though, I've had almost all of the PC brand Indian sauces and I'm a big fan...I know they aren't authentic, but they do the job and are quite tasty. There was one time when I decided to make curry from scratch. An hour or so later, my biceps were killing me from stirring so often and I had a sauce that could have mortared a house when it cooled. I'm serious, it turned out to be a building material. Since then, I stick with what I know... finding quick ways to make great food. Thank you President's Choice.

Homemade Burgers! Homemade Pasta Salad!

2009-08-17T20:44:00.004-04:00

I'm in Toronto and it is effing hot here. And don't think i'm complaining about the heat because I love it... anytime it's over 30 is fine with me because the winters here are really long. What I struggle with is the humidity, especially in my non-air conditioned apartment. The humidity makes me not want to saddle up in the kitchen for a home cooked meal. However, last night we ordered chinese so tonight I was back in the kitchen, tag teaming dinner with the Husband.

My mission: Homemade Pasta Salad with no recipe.... but for those who read this, here's the recipe as best as I can quantify it:

Just over two cups tri colored fusilli

1/2 chopped yellow pepper

1/2 chopped orange pepper

8 or so baby carrots thinly sliced

1/4 olive oil

1 tbsp italian seasoning

pinch of red chilis

salt/pepper to taste

1-2 tbsp goat cheese

1 tbsp grated parm

2 cloves crushed garlic

Boil and drain the noodles. Combine in a bowl with veg, olive oil, italian seasoning, chili flakes, garlic... stir up until all is coated with the olive oil. Add cheese and stir until melted (the noodles will be warm so it won't take much for the cheese to melt). Taste it and then add in salt and pepper as needed. Please note, you may need more italian seasoning, chilis or goat cheese, depending on how you like it. Also note, that I wasn't measuring anything and have made my best guesses as to the quantities... I couldn't very well say, "add a shit-ton of italian seasoning." After you do all this, throw it in the fridge for a half hour or longer, however long you have before serving basically.

His mission: The Burgers. (and if I thought I was bad at measuring quantities...he's worse)

One package lean ground beef

a few splashes of worcester sauce

4-5 cloves crushed garlic

chili flakes (prob a half tbsp)

Combine and beat the f--- out of it until it no longer looks like ground beef consistency. Then make into patties and grill up (we use a grill pan, high heat to start, then turn down to medium when you put the burgers on... just make sure you have a hot grill pan before putting the burgers on).

We used the nice buns with the bun seeds. I love bun seeds, you may not, so get whatever you like. Garnish with whatever you like as well. We used goat cheese and regular american cheese.

To Drink: Tomorrow's wine of the day... the Husband just put this wine in the cart the last time we were at the liquor store and I gave him the "wtf" look.... but the wine is yummy and was amazing with the burgers/pasta salad.

Cooking with Jalapenos

2009-08-16T16:05:00.002-04:00

So the nachos that I made for my Footie Party required de-seeded jalapenos chopped and cooked up with bacon. I had been told previously to just remove the seeds, chop, put them in the pan and then wash your hands right away because the capsaicin in the peppers, if it gets on your face, will burn.

What this person actually should have said is WEAR GLOVES. I washed my hands over 10 times, and did the dishes after eating and my hands are burning.

So if anyone ever reads this and is cooking with jalapenos, save yourself the pain and wear gloves.

Planning the Liverpool vs. Tottenham Party

2009-08-15T13:12:00.003-04:00

So the English Premiere League starts today and tomorrow is our team's first game against Tottenham. To ring in the season right, we're throwing a party and I'm cooking up the game time eats.

Here's the plan:

Bite Size Pizzas to start

(cutting a baguette into slices, dolloping pizza sauce on them, putting on a wee bit of meat and cheese, then baking to melt the cheese... serve. Easiest walk in the door munchie ever)

Served through out the game:

Chef Michael Smith's Nachos from his show, Chef at Home

http://www.foodtv.ca/recipes/recipedetails.aspx?dishid=8045

I don't like onions so I probably won't put them in... they'll be great either way.

Grilled up at halftime:

My take Beef Pops

(marinating beef cubes in soya, garlic, anything else I have lying around in my kitch, then skewering them on a kabob stick with some mushrooms so that half the stick is exposed... hence, the "pop" like feel... then grilling up a storm)

I have a horseradish dipping sauce that i'm going to try with it. This is just a half cup of sour cream, a couple TBSP of horsey, one TBSP of lemon juice and a pinch of salt.

All the sports like foods you could eat!

On a completely separate note, we were at The Keg for dinner last night and there is a new sampler section of the dessert menu. I don't know about any of you, but after a huge meal, I don't want a full dessert. I want a taste, just a wee bite of a dessert. This new sampler menu offers exactly that. My fav was a little chocolate cake in a shot glass... just enough to satisfy the craving. Ingenious. The Husband liked the banana caramel in a shot glass. If you get to the Keg, try this.

Wine of the day and dinner

2009-08-13T22:32:00.002-04:00

The wine of the day was the Finca Sophenia Malbec 2006. I had the pleasure of consuming this wine several times late last summer and into fall. We drank our last bottle of it this spring. I bought this wine for the first time, the day of its release in the LCBO (www.lcbo.com) because I'd rode my bike down for the opening of the store (we were downtown staying at my in-laws place and we didn't have our car there). I remember people looking at me like I was insane because I was packing my backpack with as much wine as it would hold (hello future back problems!).

One a bit of a separate note, a small 30 bottle wine fridge is a solid investment. It's really fun to fill and even more fun to empty. It stores your bottles at the right temperature and it's great to just tuck bottles away in and find a year later, only to remember the good times you had when you bought the bottle originally. They are around $250-$300 at home depot (we have a GE).

Dinner tonight: quick and easy croissant sandwiches with french fries. If any of you out there play sports in the evening, or have a husband that plays sports in the evening, this is the most non-offensive, non-burping up while playing dinner. We put like three kinds of cheeses and use really nice deli meats (or bacon) and then broil the sandwiches so the cheese is all melty. Quick, easy and only requires you to keep a few different kinds of meat/cheese in the house and a stop at the bakery after work for the fresh croissants.

Forgot: Wine of the day and this Weekend's Party

2009-08-12T23:35:00.002-04:00

Wine of the day: Tapena Tempranillo

http://www.tapenawines.com /... -Great wine under $20

Whenever I have this wine, there is always a hint of dill... which I love, it's lipsmacking for me.

Also, this weekend, for footie fans out there, is the first regular season weekend of the English Premier League www.premierleague.com. I'm holding a brunch for the Husband and his buddies... menu TBD. I'm torn between doing a late breakfast or an early lunch/manly snack soiree.

PB and J for dinner

2009-08-12T20:14:00.003-04:00

The Husband is off with colleagues tonight so I decided to spend an extra long time at the gym, then go gym bag shopping. I'd been eyeing a few timbuk2 bags (www.timbuk2.com) at Europe Bound here in Toronto (www.europebound.com) and I'd also been price checking, preparing myself to haggle if I found a gym bag that I liked.

I spent about a half hour in the basement at Europe Bound with my current gym bag, shifting contents between that bag and several other bags to find the perfect fit. Sure enough, I found a Rider Tote from timbuk2 in navy/sea green... it's beautiful. Regular price 79, got them down to 59. Europe Bound is the only place I know of in Toronto that sells timbuk2 and the guys are fabulous to chat with... they are all outdoorsy and super chill (and let's face it, a few are kind of cute... in a let's go camping kind of way). They saw me testing out the bags and just laughed and made sure that I knew where to go if I needed help.

I recommend that store 100%.

And, since the Husband is not here, I can have Pb and j for dinner... and a glass of red wine. Usually I would go for the white with Pb and j, but I've got the red open and I don't want it to go bad.

Homemade Italian Veal Meatballs

2009-08-11T19:39:00.003-04:00

Making veal italian meatballs for dinner (in a red sauce with linquine).

Recipe:

1/2 pound veal

1/2 cup asiago (and I threw some parm in for good measure)

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1 egg

1 tsp italian seasoning

sprinkle of red chili flakes

1/2 tsp salt

splash of pepper

Throw it all in a bowl and mix the fuck out of it with your hands. Form into balls and back on 375 for 20 minutes turning once. Then toss it in the red sauce (I cheated, it's a jar) and the noodles... service with a baguette and you're good to go.

The wine of the day is the Toad Hollow Zinfindel Cacophany (although that's not what i'm having with my dinner). I had the pleasure of meeting the owner of Toad Hollow a few years back (he told us to call him Dr. Toad) and he was fabulous. Really jolly and full of jokes... kind of like what you'd picture Santa to be like, except with wine (holy hell, isn't that a thought... wine Santa?). Anyway, I can't get this wine in Canada and I miss it.

Wine with dinner is Angel's Gate Gamay Noir chilled... it's an easy drinking red, won a bunch of Canadian wine awards but honestly, I can't be bothered to look up the tasting notes...I just made meatballs. Trust me on the chilled part.

Wine of the day: Nugan Estate Third Generation 2007 Shiraz

2009-08-10T19:33:00.002-04:00

We had this wine last night at Lambton Golf and Country Club... we needed something that would pair with many dishes, was easy drinking and hopefully good value. It delivered... it was fruity and I personally loved it with my veal tournedo rossini (bacon wrapped veal with foie gras, served in a morel cream sauce with tagliatelle).

I would def order this again...and buy it in the liquor store too. It's not as big as other shiraz's that I've had, but I certainly won't complain.

Had the leftover Beef Bourg for lunch today with some cracked peppercorn fettuccine. It was divine... even better than the first day.

Detoxing tonight and because it is literally as hot as hell outside, I'm limiting kitchen use... we're grilling up some bratwursts and I've got some macaroni salad and kettle chips to go with it... nice summer meal and it takes literally 10 minutes to put together. One part of the meal that makes it a wee bit nicer: the brat buns are huge, fluffy and covered in sesame seeds... not a huge difference, I know... but it adds a little something extra to the meal.

Beef Bourguignon

2009-08-09T13:52:00.003-04:00

After much research, I chose to base my Beef Bourg on a recipe from Ina Garten, link here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/beef-bourguignon-recipe/index.html

I really like watching Ina Garten, I find her voice very soothing... like lulling me into thinking that I can actually make the dishes she's preparing type soothing.

Anyway, I halved the recipe because I was only serving two people. I also made a few other changes like using maple bacon and leaving out the pearl onions. I also left the dish in the oven for almost 2.5 hours rather than the suggested hour and fifteen minutes. The outcome was lovely though... I seriously couldn't believe how amazing it was.

I served it with a nice little Bordeaux (I know that it's a dish from Burgundy but my husband is a big fan of a nice Bordeaux so I went with that). I highly recommend trying this.

Poll Feature

2009-08-08T09:38:00.004-04:00

I read this article in the NY Daily yesterday:

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/08/06/2009-08-06_women_who_drink_two_glasses_of_wine_have_better_sex_than_nondrinkers_study.html

It says that women who consume two glasses of wine per day have better sex than non-drinkers.

Hence, the poll feature is set up on this blog now.

Personally, I think it's true but I'm willing to conduct more study (like years of study).

Today's wine of the day: Hollick Shiraz Cab Sauv

2009-08-08T09:29:00.006-04:00

From my twitter: wine of the day: (i know it's 9 EST) Hollick Shir/Cab Sauv Blend http://www.hollick.com/prod... again, not in CN but hopefully soonish

I had this last year and it was fabulous... would have been excellent with beef bourguignon which is what i'm going to attempt this evening because I have this special new pot and I have no idea what else to make in it. It's not a Le Creuset but it's something very similar.

I'm told making Beef Bourg. will take a long time and it's not easy so I'm going through www.foodnetwork.com right now to find and adapt a recipe. I'll post it later if it A. goes well and B. if it doesn't go well, I can figure out what I did wrong.

What this is all about and why I'm doing it.

2009-08-08T08:57:00.004-04:00

Everyone has a blog. I'm not narcissistic enough to think people actually want to hear what I have to say on the subjects of wine, food, parties and most of all: life. However, I do think that some of the thoughts I have on these subjects are somewhat valuable to a certain subset of the population.

For instance, I tweet wines of the day at www.twitter.com/susanlyngrant. All of the wines that I choose are ones that I love, that have paired well with meals and have made me sit back, close my eyes and think, "damn, that's nice." Whether or not it's the wine that makes me feel that or the alcohol in the wine remains to be seen.

Whenever I tweet a wine of the day, I find myself very limited by the twitter 140 character rule so I thought that having a blog to compliment with recipes, party ideas and reasons why I chose the wine of the day would be helpful to my perhaps 20 readers.

I am also busy... I work, go to the gym almost every day (I drink a lot of wine and love food so if I want to fit into my clothing, I need to be in the gym almost every day), and have an active social life so the food choices and recipes that I choose on a daily basis have to be quick, easy to make for the average cook, somewhat healthy and full of flavor. I love BIG flavor. I know there are several people out in the world like me who are freaking busy up to their eye balls but still want to enjoy a nice meal and a fabulous bottle of wine at the end of the day. I'll share what I do to make that happen here and perhaps someone will pick up a few tips.

Finally, I love love love to party plan. I love to take a theme and build out menus, drinks, decorations, room set up, etc. So I'll post those ideas here too. Currently, I'm trying to talk a good friend into letting me throw her a divorce party. Divorce is terrible and in an ideal world, it wouldn't exist. But there are some cases where it's necessary, my friend is in one of those cases and I'd like nothing better than to help her close that chapter of her life and start a new chapter with happiness, friendship and overwhelming amounts of good food and wine.

One more thing. You may be wondering how in the hell I'm qualified to give opinions on all of this stuff. You don't care about my degrees, work experience, etc but what is important is that I've studied wine in a proper school. I'm not a sommelier nor do I have any desires to be one, but I have spent a lot of time studying wine itself and food pairings. This next qualification is a bit sketch: I watch the food network every day in the gym and adapt the recipes that I like for someone with less kitchen time available and markedly less skill. Cooking good food takes a wee bit of practice and the cook always needs a glass of wine at the ready.

I hope whoever reads this finds something of value.