Sunday, January 30, 2011

Trend question: Restaurants focusing on a “specialty ingredient” that drives their entire menu + brand identity?

Sunday, January 30, 2011
Wanted to pose a question to the community here just to gather some of your thoughts:

Do you think restaurants focusing on a “specialty ingredient” that drives their entire menu and brand identity will catch on in Toronto? (Think Obika Mozzarella Bar which is coming here.) Will they be profitable? Will people love them or hate them? Just a trend? Does it have staying power? Is it too risky/difficult a concept for chefs to want to take on? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section!

Yours in food,
-Stacey

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Give yourself the gift of an end-of-the-week treat: A Friday Night Roast!

Sunday, January 23, 2011


Most people wait until Sunday to make a roast or some other type of more elaborate home-cooked meal. Also, most people who don't have a family don't really bother with roasts at all. But Mark and I think there's something almost sacred about taking the time to make yourselves such a grand treat - and even better, we made it on a FRIDAY NIGHT! Screw waiting til Sunday. It was so much more rewarding to get home from a week at our full-time jobs and feed ourselves something hearty.

The slide show of delicious pictures speaks for themselves but, in short, Yorkshire Valley Farms helped us out by giving us two delicious organic grain-fed free-range chickens - they are air-chilled, rather than water-chilled (which tends to add more water and salt to the finished product and in turn it may block the true taste of the chicken from coming all the way through).



We rubbed the chicken with some salt (from Spain, brought back by our two good friends!), freshly-ground black pepper and a bit of olive oil/canola oil (our olive oil we have now, while extra virgin, is not really the tastiest, I find it a bit too grassy so we neutralized the flavour with canola). Softest, juiciest, and most flavourful chicken we've ever had by far, no joke.

We put the other chicken in the freezer and we'll probably use different seasonings on it - something more elaborate. We just wanted to get the true, unadulterated taste of the chicken first time around.

We paired it with a wine Inniskillin gave us to try - they have an East West Series of blended wines that use grapes both from their winery in British Columbia and their winery in Ontario. Certainly an interesting concept. We had the Riesling / Gewurtztraminer blend. While I'm generally a fan of sweet German Gewurtztraminer's, it was probably a good thing this one wasn't too sweet because the flavour of the chicken was so simple that it needed something that would complement it, but not outshine it. It did pair very well with our simple roast chicken, mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus.

For dessert I whipped up a Dutch Chocolate Icecream Mix my Mom was given for free by a lady at a craft sale. I know, sounds sketchy. Trust me, I was scared. It was actually pretty tasty - we had to add two cups of whipping cream and 1/2 a cup water to it and beat it like crazy, being careful to not let the cream separate.

Mark was telling me they treat Dutch Chocolate with alkali or something to take the bitterness out of it, which is why it tastes different, but the process also kills the antioxidants naturally found in chocolate so that sucks but it was tasty nonetheless.

Later this week we're planning on making a soup broth with the carcass and all the bones we've saved, potato peelings, and asparagus stems - then we'll add fresh celery, carrots and potatoes to it - yum!

Update (Jan 29): Soup has been made, and I also forgot to tell you guys where you can buy Yorkshire Valley organic products: Loblaws, Zehrs and Superstore locations across Ontario, and in the GTA at Big Carrot, Bloor Meat Market, Organic Garage, McEwans, and Dufferin Meats.

Yours in food,
-Stacey

P.S. please note the AMAZING custom aprons Mark and I got for Christmas from my sister and brother-in-law! Love you guys - thanks for supporting us!

Monday, January 3, 2011

Post-holiday food desires and a possible cure!

Monday, January 3, 2011
The holidays are amazing, and I think I might possibly love them more than anyone else on this earth, but I also feel a specific feeling after the holidays pass - maybe it's just because I've been buying for everyone but myself since October (no complaints, I love shopping period whether it's for me or others, just sayin' that I think that's where this January desire to buy for oneself stems from! And yes, I started my Christmas shopping in October!) - but I find it extra-nice to treat myself to something special just for myself, from myself, after the holidays pass.

I usually only want something small - sometimes I'm jonesing for a new planner, or a new pair of jeans. The past few holidays it's been food - for some reason I'd been hoping someone would give me some red pepper jelly over the holidays as a gift and, despite my silently-sent mental messages to all my friends and relatives, alas, I did not come out the other side of the holidays with any red pepper jelly! ;) Must... get... some... red... pepper... jelly...

And thus, now is probably a good time to introduce you to a site that I think could very well cure you if you have the same post-holiday food desires...

Back in November I had a conversation with Jonathan Chiu, founder of Savouries.ca (a Toronto-based online artisan food marketplace). Of course, with my red pepper jelly desires and general post-holiday "want to treat myself" feelings, that site popped back into my head today.

In discussing the site with him, I learned he has a goal to bring on as many local Canadian producers as possible who offer unique products that are hard to find elsewhere (locavores rejoice!) but most of our conversation was around what his most delicious and unique products are. Here are a few he gave me some interesting insights into:

  • "Personally, I think the idea of combining fruits and flowers in jams and salsas that Krista from 'From these roots’ came up with is really unique. A few of the ones I like: Pears and Pansies, Raspberry and Rosemary and strawberry basil salsa. But the most unique one I find is the Mango Peach Passionflower Salsa. That one is really different and is definitely my favourite."
  • "The eggplant antipasto by La Natura Fine Foods is amazing. The owner Vik uses a family recipe to make it. It turned me from an eggplant hater to an eggplant lover."
  • "The smoked salmon by Medallion Smoked Salmon is the best in PEI and one of the best in Canada. Readers Digest talked about them a couple years back, and people line up for their salmon bagels every weekend at the Charlottetown Farmers’ Market."
  • "Everything by Form V Artisan is very much homemade, which is definitely a change from most things you get out there. I haven’t actually tried her truffles, but her salted caramel and the gingerbread spice caramels (Stacey's note: pictured above) are amazing."
  • "Vida Grains is a pretty interesting concept in itself, it’s made up of a mix of 6 organic seeds and 6 sources of bran. It was also a family recipe that they decided to bring to the market. Not only is it healthy, it actually tastes very good."
I think my red pepper jelly craving was just replaced by a desire to try eggplant antipasto...

Happy new year everyone, let's make 2011 a delicious one!

Yours in food,
-Stacey