La Chouffe!

I'm back from Europe and better for it! I wish I was still there but I'm also enjoying the coziness that only "home" can give a person. I had so many amazing foods while in Europe but I fell in love with a beer called "La Chouffe".

I'm not going to lie I am easily swayed by packaging and let's be honest the initial part of falling in love is a physical attraction. It was kind of love at first sight for me and La Chouffe when I saw the super cute little gnome on the glass and I knew I had to have it. Then the taste just confirmed it for me.


La Chouffe is a Belgian beer and there are 2 commercial products. "La Chouffe" a blonde beer, and "Mc Chouffe" a dark beer. Both are delicious!!!! This beer was available in most places in Amsterdam and Brussels. I drank it every chance I got. I was lucky enough to discover it on the first day of vacation and asked for it everywhere I went pretty much. Of course I had other beers too, but I tried to have at least one La Chouffe per day if possible. I'm told that if you watch for it you can get La Chouffe at the LCBO particularly at Christmas time. So keep your eyes peeled beer lovers this one is a must try!

http://www.achouffe.be/en

A bit of a Dry Spell....

Okay, I've really fallen off the blogging wagon lately. There are reasons/excuses for this which involve me being busy and I won't bore you with further detail than that. What it boils down to is, these days I haven't had much time or energy to experiment in the kitchen which I really think takes away from my level of relaxation to tell you the truth. So it's not all that surprising that I've also been really stressed lately too. Creating something in the kitchen on the weekend is one of my favourite things to do. I just like to make things in general, whether it be sewing, painting or making up jingles about mundane activities I need to do. I always feel the need to be in the process of making something. And making food is so rewarding sometimes. There is nothing like the smell of good food cooking to melt your troubles away. But I want you to know I haven't stopped thinking of recipes to try and soon I will get back to it.

I don't have a recipe for you this time around because life continues in a busy pattern for me and another weekend goes by without my putting on my apron and rolling up my sleeves. However, I do have a culinary crusade ahead of me in the vey near future. My dear friends, I am very shortly about to expose Husband to the world of European Food. Something he has not experienced in this life before. I want him to day dream of European pastry shop windows the way I do. That is longingly and with a heavy regretful sigh that I'm not sipping cappuccinos and munching croissants in a Parisian cafe every morning. However for a short while, I will be living a variation of that constant day dream of mine. And I'm quite sure I'll have a story or 2 for you from those adventures. So, more to the point of this endless drivel I'm on about here, I'm not going to have any posts between now and the start of October. Sorry there's a bit of a dry spell here but I'm hoping that when I do come back it will be with a bang!

Corn and Sweet Potato Chowder with Chipotle

This is another Mark Bittman recipe and I had really high expectations because of how much I love the quinoa tabouleh. I think I set myself up for failure in that respect. I did not love this nearly as much. It's still a good soup, but I wanted it to be the best soup I'd ever had. Which it wasn't. the best soup I ever had as a pumpkin soup in a French restaurant in the Dominican Republic. The pumpkin soup still holds the title. What I do like about this soup this that it feels healthy when you eat it. Yeah okay there's cream in it so it's not the world's healthiest soup. But it's only half a cup of cream in the whole batch, and what I mean by feels healthy is that there's beautiful chunks of healthy veggies and there's nothing like fresh ingredients. For the love of God DO NOT make this with canned corn. I hate effing canned corn. Use corn fresh off the cob as directed in the recipe of just go eat at some grease pit fast food joint. Seriously.

Make this soup if you like a little spice in your culinary life and if you have an appreciation of a chunky soup.

recipe: http://itsfeedingtimeatthezoo.com/2011/05/31/corn-and-sweet-potato-chowder-with-chipotle/

Donuts!!!!

Husband is obsessed with fresh made donuts. For our honeymoon we stayed at an all inclusive resort and they served fresh made donuts. He talks about them with a gleam in his eye and drool on his chin. He got for a gift from his sister a dry mix for homemade donuts from Williams Sonoma, one might say the perfect gift for him. But you have to know it's not going to be him standing over a pot of oil on a Monday night. That's where I come in. Today was not my greatest day at work. I had to stay late and I was pretty tired when I got home. This morning I became semi-conscious at around 6am and thought to myself "Oh, it's Sunday I can keep sleeping." and proceeded to fall back into my dream of being at a day spa on a farm in France. 30 minutes later my anger at not having had my french facial yet brought me back to consciousness and I realized it was actually Monday and I'd slept in half and hour. From there the day continued much in the same pattern. So yes I was not in the best spirits tonight and wasn't much in the mood for deep frying anything. That is exactly what I did though.

The donut mix was Willams Sonoma Bouchon Bakery Donut mix. You add butter, egg yolks and warm milk to the packet of dry ingredients and yeast included. Mix it up and let it rise in a bowl for an hour. Then you roll out the dough and cut your donuts. Don't have a donut cutter? Neither do I, but I do have a round cookie cutter so that's what I used. No holes in these donuts. Then you place your cut dough on greased cookies sheets and let sit for at least 8 hours in the fridge. Mine sat about 24 hours. I came home took them out of the fridge to let them get back up to room temperature and filled a pot with oil.

Now, if you recall I hate deep frying. So me standing there waiting for the oil to heat, I was getting more paranoid by the second. Images of my flesh burning thru to the bone from hot oil. My face melting off a la wicked witch of the west, or Jack Nicholson's joker. Or even me looking like Jack Napier's girlfriend Alicia post "Living Art Experiment" in Tim Burton's Batman (one of my favourite films growing up). This is how I see my face looking all because Husband wants a donut. Either I was too exhausted to really care, or I'm braver than I think I am because I just went for it. Not much hesitation this time. I burned my first few donuts as I think the oil was too hot but once I found my stride I was good to go. Even if I was full of bottled terror. I cooked all my donuts and then dredged them in the cinnamon and sugar mixture that also was included in the kit from Williams & Sonoma. The end result is about a dozen cute little donuts that Husband gave a 10 out of 10. I didn't try one because for some reason I'm doing a sugar detox right now....We'll just have to take his word for it!

Cheddar Ale Soup

I find soup a highly under-rated food. It can be so fantastic and this is definitely a recipe to make you a believer. When I saw this recipe in a magazine the title intrigued me for certain, I mean beer and cheese how can it not be tasty? But still I was blown away by how great this recipe is. Super easy to make and addictively tasty. This smells so amazing when it's cooking and it tastes even better than it smells. Husband had a taste when it was done and couldn't stop "tasting" it. I ate 3 bowls myself, it's just so damn delicious. If the way to someone's heart is thru their stomach this is the recipe that proves that theory. One drawback, when you look at the fat content of this recipe you'll know why it's so damn good too - because it's basically is a heart attack in a bowl .I say risk it though. You can cut down on the fat content a touch by using a little less butter than called for and by using 18% cream instead of the 35% called for. I don't think I've made a Michael Smith recipe before but I'll for sure try him again after this one. One more thing, I used New Castle Brown Ale for my beer and it turned out fantastic!

Recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Soup/Cheese/recipe.html?dishid=9529

First Class Taters and Cream

If you haven't been to Lick's get the eff there now. Lick's is the best fast food there is period. My favourite thing to get at Lick's is the veggie burger with taters and cream. Taters and cream is french fry heaven. I've taken to making my french fries at home these days because I feel like if you make it yourself it's not quite as terrible for you. I'm not sure how much merit that holds but it sounds good right? I'm sure there must be some study somewhere to back me up on that claim. If nothing else you know some degenerate teenager didn't spit in your food and give you Hep B.

I like to make my fries even less healthy for me every once in a while too. I mean why stop at oil and salt? So sometimes I'll make my own homemade taters and cream or even put a little hollandaise sauce and green onion on my fries...the possibilities are endless really. The other day though it occurred to me that I could take my taters and cream from ordinary to extraordinary with a fantastic thing called Truffle Honey. Have you ever had truffle honey? If not that's #2 of things to eat on your list right after Lick's. The first time you eat truffle honey you have to do it proper. That is get yourself a strong aged cheddar and a small jar of truffle honey and put just a little bit if honey on your cube of cheese. Your mouth will orgasm. Experience truffle honey in this way first and then your ready to push on to other things. But you really need to get the earthy sweetness of having it in a pretty pure form before branching out as I've done in this recipe.

To make your First Class Taters and Cream get some french fry potatoes. Yes they do sell those - check the bulk section of potatoes and they should be there. (Usually with a little brown bag to put them in.) Give them a good scrub and then slice 'em up and lightly coat in oil and salt to taste. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or so at around 400-425. (flipping half way thru) On top of your baked french fries you want to pile shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream that has had truffle honey stirred into it (about 1 tbsp of honey to 1/2 cup of sr cream), crispy bacon chopped into bacon bits and chopped green onion. There you have First Class Taters and Cream. Like I said I just had an epiphany of this recipe the other day so you may want to tweak this to your own tastes but you will not be let down by this one. Or a least I wasn't.

PS - don't go by my layering in the photo you want cheese directly ontop of the fries so it gets melty and gooey!

Quinoa Tabbouleh

Just because I've finished Nigella Express does not mean that I have stopped cooking. I've decided that what I'll do from here on out is just blog about various recipes that appeal to me for what ever reason. If something is a little out of the norm or just a great version of a classic I'm gonna give it a shot and you're going to go thru it with me. I'm hoping that together we can get a catalogue of killer recipes and I'll be your guinea pig!

Now before we go any further I'm going to tell you about the most amazing birthday party I went to yesterday. One of my oldest and best friends was giving her baby girl a "half birthday party". Her baby was born 2 weeks before Christmas when everyone is always so busy and the weather is usually terrible (it's Canada!!!) so she decided that rather than ask everyone to drive in that awful weather so close to Christmas they would have a lovely July half-a-year birthday party. So we all come from hours away - for us it was a 90 minute drive - and after being there a short while her and her boyfriends stood up to make a speech and thank everyone for making the effort. Then she made the announcement that they had become engaged! So we were all very happy about that. But then they took it even further and announced that they were going to get married right then and there!!!!! We were all in shock! My friend beside me was outright weeping at this point. I was just agog. We all were. It was so fast. They went inside and changed clothes. Husband was standing there in camo print shorts and I hadn't even washed my hair!!! At least I was wearing a dress, a frumpy dress but at least a dress. Then my friend comes out of her house in a beautiful dress and in 9 minutes they were married! It was crazy, inspiring, spontaneous and romantic. Definitely a wedding that one does not forget.

So I had to share that just because I'm still in shock and to make the point that you don't need bells and whistles to have a great wedding. Now on to the recipe.

Quinoa Tabbouleh is a recipe made by Mark Bittman, from the Food Matters Cookbook. Mark Bittman follows the philosophy that quality ingredients make quality food. And he really knows how to mix and compliment flavours. One bite of this salad and you will know exactly what I mean. The other great thing about this recipe is that you can really make it your own by playing around with the quantity of the ingredients and picking and choosing what to include. So when I make this I leave out the white beans, I add in the pistachio and I add just a little, and I do mean a little, extra mint. To me it's the mint that really makes this recipe. It adds a layer to the recipe that I did not expect but have become a little addicted to. I love and I mean LOVE this recipe.

There is just so much possibility with the recipe and I think it offers something for everyone. Not to mention this recipe is 100% vegan and gluten free. Don't let that deter you though if you are a meat eater, it can be enjoyed by all. Husband, the meatetarian, likes this salad also. So if you're having a BBQ or potluck or a surprise backyard wedding this is a recipe that everyone can enjoy no matter what their dietary restrictions. I cannot recommend this enough.

http://markbittman.com/quinoa-tabbouleh