Hot Food in the Summertime

So it's officially summer now, and though I haven't posted much since spring, it doesn't mean I haven't been cooking. No, that activity is relentless -- every morning shortly after breakfast I start thinking about dinner -- shopping for it, defrosting, prepping, cooking. My family seems never to be prepared to start sharing preferences that early in the day, but I need to start planning long before anyone has an appetite for it. Including me.

Some of the culinary highlights of the last couple months:

• We got a waffle iron! I splurged on the Breville when it went on sale, and against my husband's wishes for another appliance in the kitchen. It's been a huge hit though, and even he's sold on it. Highlights include making four big waffles at a time, a well to hold all the inevitable excess spillage, a non-stick, easy-clean surface, and a timer that lets you go off and do other things, like stare morosely into your coffee, while you wait for them to be done. Oh, and waffles are a great way to use up buttermilk you bought for other recipes. These are now in the Saturday morning breakfast rotation, and one of these days I will get around to experimenting with savory waffles for dinner. Blue corn waffles with chicken in gravy sounds really appealing to me.

 

• I figured out that my smoothie maker can be put to even better use if I skip the kale and add booze! After drinking what was essentially a delicious sugary glass of half-melted peach sorbet and alcohol at a waterside bar, my friend Sam and I experimented with making frozen Bellinis at home. Mixing frozen peaches (and some strawberries if you like) with peach liqueur in the Magic Bullet, and topping with inexpensive local sparkling wine makes for two very happy moms on the back deck on a Friday afternoon.

• Spatchcocking isn't only fun to say! It's also the best way I have learned to get a roasted chicken on the table that is (a) not half-raw and (b) is done before bedtime. I have my butcher remove the backbone (and save it in my frozen chicken parts bag destined for stock) and I rub that sucker with lots of rosemary and garlic in olive oil. Crisp on the stove, put the skillet in the oven with something heavy pressing it down, and in less than an hour we have crispy but juicy roast chicken. I like to serve with lemon wedges and a little pan gravy. 

• I don't hate fennel if it's roasted and/or sliced super thin in a slaw. And it's really nice to continue the theme and serve with Pernod-orange juice cocktails over lots of ice.
• Fish schnitzel (sole filets crusted in panko and pan fried) is a surefire way to get even Lucas to eat fish with enthusiasm. I served with tiny cheese ravioli in brown butter sauce, carrots, and salad. The kids dipped in ketchup, while the grownups got a little brown butter-white wine-lemon-caper sauce, though I did catch Mr. Gateau hitting the ketchup on seconds.
• File under everything is better with bacon -- creamy fresh corn soup with bacon and some swirls of pesto.

• Grilling season is, in fact, the most wonderful time of the year. No fuss, no muss. Extra points when we eat outside and just sweep the crumbs onto the ground. I've been doing a lot of pork tenderloins, which take to all kinds of seasoning very well and cook quickly while staying moist, and chicken skewers, generally either in a malai kebab yogurt marinade or a red wine-olive oil-garlic marinade.

Family Dinner Continues Apace

Greetings Earthlings! I am pleased to report that my family has not yet starved to death under my care. In fact, I have hit on some dinners that have gotten the much-sought Lucas Two Thumbs Up rating.

The first thing that has happened is that Lucas started art classes at the amazing Arts Umbrella, which offers high-quality visual and performing arts instruction to children from preschool through high school. The school is located on Vancouver's famous Granville Island, which is packed full of art studios, galleries, restaurants, and the amazing Public Market, where I now spend a couple of hours every Friday busting our food budget for the week while Lucas takes his mixed media class. Even with the best of intentions, I can't help but return home with bags stuffed with endless varieties of delicious goodies -- lately I can't resist the pyramids of neatly stacked strawberries and blueberries, the multicolored bunches of kale, and the huge variety of grains, spices, and other nifty ingredients at the Grainry. And I never fail to stop by Oyama Sausage Co., whose massive selection of creative sausages made from local high quality meats has become the center of our Friday dinner. I can't even bring myself to look at their full selection of charcuterie, pate, and cheese, or I might never leave.

Sausages with herbed couscous, stewed zucchini, and fruit plate.

 

Yes, Friday night is Sausage Night. Each week, I select three or four varieties (this is hard! they have dozens and dozens, and the selections change daily) and as soon as I get home I pop them into the oven while I put away all the produce and other tasty bits, and put together some simple and quick side dishes (couscous is a favorite). I've started cutting up a little fruit plate for Lucas and Baby Gateau, so at least they get some plant matter into them.

This week we sampled Toulouse pork sausage (mild and perfect for kids), Chicken with Preserved Lemon (a little dry, but tasty), Elk with Huckleberry (gamey in a good way), and Pork with Prune (delicious, but deemed "too fruity" by the kids). Others we've tried have included Duck with Truffle, Smokey Bison (Lucas's favorite), Pork with Red Wine and Herbs (fantastic), and Japanese Chicken (kids raved).

Ham night.

Another gift that kept on giving was the procurement of a spiral-sliced ham from Costco when we ventured across the border to Bellingham, WA. They have most of the stuff we're used to getting at the Vancouver Costco, but some of our favorite American products can only be found if we drive down to Washington State. Fortunately, I now know where to go when I run out of the supply of A-1 Steak Sauce my mother brought me when I whined that what they sell under that label in Canada is a totally different product.

The ham, cooked with a simple maple glaze, served us for umpteen meals. The first night, I served it with mashed sweet potatoes and a green salad, but everyone clamored for "regular" potatoes, so I made that the next night too. The ham showed up in school lunch sandwiches, in cold cut platters at home, and finally its bone and last scraps of meat produced a phenomenal French Canadian Pea Soup with yellow split peas.

My bella chicken.

And my crowning achievement was the Julia Child-inspired roasting of a chicken. I took a midweek trip to Granville Island to obtain a haggis for our cousin's Robert Burns Day party, and while at the butcher purchased a huge chicken. The last time I had tried to roast a chicken was a complete disaster -- it would not cook through, and only later did I realized that both my meat thermometer and the temperature gauge on the oven were busted. I have remedied that with an oven thermometer and a new meat thermometer and all is well.

French chef-type roast chicken is not a set-it-and-forget-it project. You have to baste and turn that bastard every 10-15 minutes, but boy is it worth it. It came out succulent, with a well-seasoned, brown and crisp skin and gorgeous drippings for a gravy. I roasted some potatoes in a dish alongside it and served a bowl of my favorite flash-fried kale with lemon, and it was a truly fine meal. It was big enough to give us a second night of roast chicken, plus its carcass tipped the balance and allowed me to clear out my freezer stash of chicken bits and vegetable trimmings to make the best chicken stock I ever made, following Gabrielle Hamilton's instructions in the Prune cookbook. I'd added a few extra drumsticks to the pot, and the meat from those later went into a batch of chicken tacos, while about the stock is what made that pea soup so rich and delicious.

 

But the very best part of all about my weekly trips to Granville Island may not be the delectable things coming out of the kitchen. It's that I have a little extra time to myself. After all the shopping is done, I settle myself down in a cafe or, better yet if I'm not driving, a bar and treat myself to something nice. Last week, the lovely bartender at the Liberty Distillery made me their delicious take on an Old Fashioned -- white whiskey with orange gomme syrup, bitters, lemon, and star anise. It was lovely, and I quite relaxed as I sipped it, while admiring the ruby red strawberries and opalescent black kale spilling out of my bags around me. It was a perfect start to the weekend.

Cocktail report

Googling around for a rosewater-including cocktail, preferably with something pomegranate in it, I came across this excellent recipe on the fabulous Diary of a Fanatic Foodie blog. Not only does she have excellent, creative ideas and great photography, she is also a cooking and food loving attorney.

This has moved up to the top of my list for the house cocktail to offer at Saturday's Moroccan dinner. Unless I get lazy and do a rosewater-soaked sugarcube with rose champagne cocktail instead. But will report back in full, and meanwhile will keep reading about the Fanatic Foodie's exploits.

Urgent Cocktail Update

Just came across this delicious-sounding cocktail recipe, the Tropicaliana (via the Al Dente blog Twitter feed, how's that for your intertextual web experience?). It combines rum, lime, ginger liqueur, and simple syrup, topped with rose Champagne or sparkling wine. Must. Have.

Drinkies!

Mark Bittman takes on the cocktail in his Minimalist way in the Times today.

Also tasty article about frozen blended cocktails and some intriguing recipes.

I enjoyed a drink I made the other night, based on my spotty recollection of a recipe I saw in Real Simple. What I did: cut up about a third of a lime, squeezed the juice into a pint glass, and dropped the lime pieces in. Cut up a big strawberry and tossed it in. Filled the glass with ice. Poured in a healthy amount of berry-flavored vodka, and topped with club soda. I later re-read the recipe and discovered that it calls for a mixture of berries (blackberries and raspberries would be nice) and wants you to add sugar. It was very refreshing and more adult than you might think (given the fruity vodka) without the sugar, but when I make this on Sunday for a lunch we're having, I think I may add just a touch of simple syrup. Plus I think sprigs of mint will be a nice addition.

Bacon in Jamaica, Day 1

The Beach Bar

View from the Terrace





View from the Beach

First of all, thanks to Meg for the title.

Due to my friend Pam's excellent foresight in choosing a spouse, My friends Pam, Meg, Anne and I had access to a stunning and luxurious villa in Jamaica for a long weekend to celebrate an upcoming Very Special Birthday. I will not go into any greater detail on that matter.

Having departed New York at the crack of dawn, we arrived at the villa in time for lunch. We didn't have much settling in to do, because the excellent staff took care of all that. First, Pam sat down with the house staff to discuss menus for our visit. Pork products were stressed. Then we changed into light clothing and headed to the beach cafe. We started with a round of Ting soda, sort of a sugary Fresca, just to get the blood sugar flowing. I had a salad with papaya and curried shrimp that immediately got me into the Caribbean mood. Anne had the same, Pam had an Asian chicken salad, and Meg had a terrific looking club sandwich that not only contained bacon but also a fried egg, with fries.

After that, we hit the beach. And here I can say I wholeheartedly recommend visiting the Caribbean in the off-season. The beach and the resort's bars and restaurants were quiet, but not entirely empty, so there was no jockeying for a lounge chair or a table. It was pure, unadulterated relaxation. One morning we had the beach all to ourselves. It was bliss. That afternoon we enjoyed frozen drinks at the beach bar -- your pina colada, your strawberry daquiri, your gin rickey. I will simply say that the bartenders did not pour with a light hand.

We followed this with Red Stripe on the terrace at the villa while dinner was being prepared.

After relaxing at the villa's pool, we heard for the first time the sound that we came to know and love so well during our time there -- the sound of the bell calling us to the table.

Dinner began with conch soup, which was creamy but had a nice spicy bite. We then had a simple salad served with a homemade ranch dressing. I'm not usually a ranch fan, but this was all natural and thus didn't taste like sour glue with a few herbs in it. Next, the main course was laid out buffet-style -- a fabulously juicy and spicy jerk pork tenderloin, with carrots, stringbeans, rice and beans, and fried plantains. I'm sure we had red wine with this, because I don't think we ever turned down red wine. After we'd done major damage to the jerk pork, we were surprised with a birthday cake arranged by Pam's mother-in-law, served with champagne. The cake was strongly flavored with vanilla, and tasted sweet and warm and just like a birthday cake should.

After dinner we collapsed in the open-air living room, leafed through magazines, finished our drinks, and gabbed. We've been friends since forever, and what's really nice about that is (1) you never run out of things to talk about and (2) if you do, nobody minds just sitting silently and companionably until it's time to talk again.

Then we slept the sleep of the just, while our husbands took care of the kids and/or our fathers looked after our dogs.

What I am Drinking, Fall Edition

Somehow, the boozy fruitiness of my summer cocktails just doesn't seem right in October, even if the weather only just came down from its heights in the upper 80s about a week ago. So I have returned to my standby, the dirty vodka Martini with olives. Much as I love briny, salty things (see bacon photo), I don't like it when the bartender dumps in a big glug of olive juice. It wants a splash, and it wants a little more Vermouth than the dry Martini fanatics endorse, to balance the brine with a little mellowness. I'm liking these Sable & Rosenfeld "Tipsy Olives" I get at the supermarket, which have a little Vermouth in the marinade. They're huge, with pimientos, and because I am my own best bartending friend, I allot my drink with two of them, one to eat when halfway through, and one to enjoy at the end.

This personal perfecting of my Martini no doubt explains why I am falling asleep on the sofa every night instead of posting on Cookiestuffs, but I know my faithful readers appreciate a good cocktail, too, and forgive me.

Late-Breaking Cocktail News

In tonight's continuing coverage of Mlle Gateau's cocktail concocting, we have this update just in. Blood Orange Mojito. Yes, we can confirm that a Blood Orange Mojito has been made and is being consumed at this time. Please stay with us for updates throughout the night.

Cocktails: The Entire Point of Warm Weather

I've been hitting the cocktail shaker again, now that it's reliably warm and I'm not pregnant. Here are some of the hits so far:

• Sunny Blue Sky Cocktail (vodka, Hpnotiq, pineapple juice)
• Blood Orange Cosmopolitan (vodka, Cointreau, Rose's Lime Juice, blood orange nectar)
• Mojito (with fresh garden mint)
• Pretty Dirty Martini (vodka martini with Kalamata olive juice and olives, touch of vermouth)
• Tropical White Wine Sangria (fruity dry white wine, assorted frozen fruit, such as pineapple, mango, peaches, berries, touch of fruit juice, touch of soda, good glug of brandy)
• Pink Grapefruit Margarita

Dogs on the Grill

It was another beautiful weeked, and that called for grilling. On Saturday, I put together some really tasty chicken kebabs -- the chicken marinated in lots of lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, rosemary, and basil, and I used small whole tomatoes, zucchini, red onion, yellow pepper, and mushrooms to make the kebabs. It's a one-dish meal, and also gets us to eat more vegetables than certain ones of us otherwise might.

Yesterday we just did up some beef hot dogs with toasted buns, but I also threw some hot Italian sausage on, and it was great. I wasn't sure what to dress it with, so I had it plain, but I think some sauteed onions would have been nice, or even maybe an aioli.

I also concocted a ridiculous girlie cocktail out of vodka, a bit of Hpnotiq blue liqueur, and a tiny splash of pineapple juice, which came out a beautiful sky blue color and was tasty.