The reality check...

I wouldn't say that I have an obsessive personality... Okay. Some of you who know me may be sniggering at that. Do I have an obsessive personality? Maybe? For some things? Really? Whatever. Let's move on.

So, as I was saying: I wouldn't say that I have an obsessive personality.  But ever since reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, I haven't been able to look at an apple the same way. Nor any sort of produce, really. I can't stop thinking about how non-organic produce is chemical soaked, nutritionally void styrofoam; why would I waste my money, time and health on that? 

So for about a year now, the variety and availability of produce in my fridge has been shrinking... Sure, eating locally through the MSRO and my own garden in the summer was bountiful and wonderful; but this winter has been bleeeeeeak. Always the same for my little Gatineau organic shopping cart: carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, apples, bananas, spinach and romaine, sometimes oranges. How's a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-make-the-recipe-up-as-you-go cook supposed to survive on that?! For the first time in my life - THE FIRST TIME! - I've run out of inspiration (ergo, the slowly dwindling number of blog posts). The fight with the rotting sweet potato was the first symptom. Gaaaawd - that thing drove me nuts! Sitting at the back of the crisper, giving me the stare-down. Argh! 

And I'm lazy! I could have promised myself that I'd drive all the way to Hull, or Ottawa, for a better selection of organic produce, but let's face it: that wasn't going to happen. Driving more than an hour round-trip each week to get my groceries was out of the question. So, after consulting with fellow converts-to-organic, I decided to compromise: I'll avoid the Dirty Dozen as much as humanly possible (gonna be tough when the first strawberries start coming in), and I'll buy organic when it's available. Sounds logical enough for some? It was a freakin' epiphany for me. I know. Slow learner.

So with that in mind, I hit my old greengrocer's with the enthusiasm of a kid at Christmas: the bright colours! The smells! The crapload of goodies! How I missed it. I held a sweet bell pepper in my hand, but I had the strength to set it back down, and I took some brussels sprouts instead (no wait - it's not a downgrade! They're equivalent! It's called "tossing it with bacon", people!) . So I'm happy again. It's so strange; I literally felt inspiration flowing back into my little cook's core as poked and sniffed the pineapple (which, by the way, is on sale for a dollar each at Marché Frais this week! I bought three!). So that's it for this post. I haven't cooked dinner yet, so I don't have anything to show you. I was just that excited to say that I felt like cooking again.

Talk to you soon!

Hang'er High

[A warning to vegetarians and those with sensitivities, this post includes pictures of raw meat.]

Am I the only person who thinks that messing up a perfectly good ingredient is a heart-sickening crime? Not a premeditated one, mind you, but a crime nonetheless... You know what I'm talking about : when you spend a small fortune on two roasts of local lamb for your father's 60th birthday and you cook the living daylights out of it because you haven't programmed your thermometer properly? Ugh. I still feel sick about that one. Or when you simmer some beautiful organic chicken bones for the perfect stock and at the end of the evening, when the simmering's done, you put the colander in the sink, dump out the stock and bones and realize you forgot to put a bowl under the colander? Yaaaaaaaaargh!

So it's with a bit of dread in my heart that I embarked on a simple yet intimidating venture the other night: the hanger steak. I'd been curious about it for months. It's such a hot cut of meat right now. HOT I tell you! It's all over the foodie magazines. And all over restaurant menus. Coincidentally, it was all over my sister's wedding last week (kudos to Epicuria - great job, and gutsy, considering you had 120 people to feed!) But I digress.

The hanger steak is a tougher cut of meat, coming from the area beneath the ribs on a steer. It hasn't had the pretty, sheltered life of a filet mignon - it's actually been busy working and moving. It's tough. Marlon Brando tough. I was scared. Scared to screw it up. But I carried on. I had to experience the amazing flavour it promised. Like Brando, it was just a question of approaching it the right way - when you do it right, it can be reeeeeeeeal nice.

My daring attempt began with a whole hanger steak purchased through the MSRO at Lochaber's Ferme Brylee, a local producer of grass-fed, antibiotic and hormone-free beef. At approx. $15, I had enough to generously feed four people - cheap! After reading up a bit on the hanger steak online (thank you, New York Times!), I got to work.

The Beast

1. I removed as much of the silver skin and large chunks of fat as I could. The meat is so beautifully marbled that I figured all of the extra fat really wasn't necessary (that was a gamble - it paid off, thank goodness). 

2. As instructed by Suzanne Hamelin's article in the NYT, I carefully butterflied the meat (in the same direction as the meat fibers), to make sure that it was no more than 1/2 inch thick. I'd decided to trim out the big white cartilage thingie from the centre, but chickened out halfway. I ended up with a big piece with the thingie still attached, and a few smaller pieces that I'd cut off from the butterflied ends (cut crosswise from the meat fibres).

4. Before putting these lovely steaks on the heat, I made sure I followed these bits of information provided by Hamelin: 

• because it's a tougher cut, the hanger steak can't be served rare, nor can it be served well-done. It's medium-rare or nothing for maximum chewability and flavour.
• to insure that the heat is distributed quickly and evenly through the meat, the steak has to have been resting at room temperature for at least an hour.
• a cast-iron skillet set on high for searingly hot heat is the best option. Cast-iron insures even heat distribution and can take the higher temperature.

5. So with my hood fan on maximum, my cast-iron hot and my steaks salted and peppered, I threw a splash of canola oil and a knob of butter in the pan (the oil helps to keep the butter from burning), and put on the steaks. Lowering the heat to medium high, I cooked each steak for no more than two minutes per side and promptly removed them from the heat to let them rest in a plate for five minutes, covered with foil (this allows the juices to redistribute through the meat and prevents their loss when you cut into the steak).

Bonus: as a quickie sauce, once the steaks were resting under the foil, I turned the heat down to low and threw a good splash (about 1/4 cup) of white vermouth in the pan (white wine would have been fine too) to help scrape off the tasty bits left behind by the meat. Once all the tasty goodness had been scraped off and the vermouth had had a minute or so to burn off its alcohol, I took the pan off the heat, threw in a generous teaspoon of Dijon mustard, stirred it around, and added about 1/4 cup of 35% cream, plus five or six generous grinds from the pepper mill. I poured the sauce into two little dipping bowls to accompany the steak.

I served the steak with some steamed organic green and yellow beans (splashed with a bit of olive oil instead of butter) and some be-oootiful tiny oyster mushrooms from Le Coprin. There was no way around it for those - they were sautéed in butter.

Et voilà:

I'm very proud to say that the hanger steak turned out beautifully. It was crisp and caramelized on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside. And the flavour? Simply delicious; rich and beefy, like a steak should taste. The following picture was taken at great risk - I actually had Marc postpone a bite for the sake of documenting doneness. I nearly lost a finger. I swear.

One last little tip: in order to get maximum tenderness out of every bite, you must - MUST! - slice the steak crosswise from the grain, and in thin slices, to reduce the amount of resistance in the muscle fibres. Think of it as cutting through a bunch of elastic bands; if you slice through them crosswise, they ain't so stretchy now, are they? Hah!

So the great hanger steak gamble was a success. I'm so very glad I stopped being a wuss and gave it a go. It wasn't hard at all, and the beautiful, highly flavourful end product was the perfect reward. We both look forward to having it again soon.

À la prochaine!

An embarrassment of riches...

The garden's exploded. There's food everywhere. As Marc and I filled our harvest bowls to the brim with green and purple beans, I couldn't help but giggle as I was reminded of that beautiful line from Casablanca that was made oh-so-much more entertaining when recited by Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun: "It's a topsy-turvy world, and maybe the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans... But this is OUR hill! And these are OUR beans!!"

*Sniff* Beautiful. So the beans were packaged up for another time, as the harvest also included the following:

Golden nugget, Kenosha, Black Russian, Black from Tula, Ottawa 39

Chantenay, Yellowstone and Cosmic Purple!

Chioggia and Touchstone Gold

The tomatoes were put aside for tasty sandwiches, a cherry tomato and bocconcini salad with basil (an oldie but unbeatable goodie - that's for din dins tomorrow with some nice baguette) and, of course, a ratatouille (as soon as Dad drops off another truckload of courgettes). So what was left? The beautiful, glorious root vegetables. I couldn't help myself; I had to create a tableau...:

Don't you just want to dive in?

Now, I think I've made it abundantly clear that turning on the oven when it's stinking hot outside goes against my deepest convictions. However, I had to make an exception. I just cringed at the thought of boiling all of this stuff for dinner... The time! The dishes! The lost flavour and nutrients! THE HUMANITY! 

So I lazily tossed everything together with olive oil and some leftover cauliflower I had hanging around the fridge, and I set that sugar-packed jewel box of a meal to roast. 

Peekaboo!

Oh, stop looking so good! You're embarrassing yourselves!

By the way, have you ever tried roasted cauliflower? Sorry for going off on a tangent here, but OMG. It's like eating buttery bits of sweet sweet caramelized and burnt goodness that could only be described as what a strapping young fireman's lips must taste like after a hard day's work of putting out five alarm blazes. Honest. It's mind blowing. But you have to be patient. They have to roast until they're soft enough that you can squish them between your fingers (hypothetically speaking, of course - don't burn yourself).

Woo! Is it getting hot in here? Right. My oven's on. 

Back to veggies. If you'd like to give roasted vegetables a go, I highly recommend it. Here are some  pointers:

1. No matter what the veggie (potatoes included), set your oven to 400 F and stick the baking sheet in there as the oven heats up; this will ensure that the sheet is searingly hot when the veggies hit it, which will help with caramelization (the delicious brown! The delicious brown!)

2. Cut all of your veg at the same thickness, so everything cooks at the same time. Keep into account the density of your veg as well - a cauliflower floret can be cut a lot bulkier than a slice of denser beet.

3. Make sure your veggies are nice and dry before you splash oil on them (you're just adding enough oil to coat them); a quick go with a tea towel usually does the trick. If they're still wet, the heat will be wasted on evaporation rather than caramelization. We don't want that.

4. Don't salt your veggies ahead of time; the salt draws out moisture and may slow or even - heaven forbid - prevent the delicious browning. Wait until they're done and salt them as soon as they come out of the oven, while they're still hot and glistening (like that fireman's lips). Pepper, herbs and/or spices are fine anytime, beginning or end.

5. Once your oven is at 400 F, pull out the pan and throw a good knob of butter in there - it should sizzle and slightly brown when it hits the hot surface. That's when you add your veggies and stick the pan back in the oven.

6. You can flip the veggies halfway through the cooking process, but I'm usually too lazy, so I rarely do. Forty minutes is a good cooking time, but I recommend you start checking for doneness as soon as 25 minutes in, depending on the type of veggie and thickness of the cut.

7. No matter what you're roasting, it's never a bad idea to add a thickly cut onion to the mix. Those are just awesome no matter what dish you're going to serve.

Once your veggies are roasted, you can do a ton of things with them:

- Serve them alongside some nice protein like fish, tofu or meat. 

- Mix them around with a grain like bulgur, millet or couscous, or some quinoa, throw in some herbs, some nuts, and give everything a splash of white wine vinegar and olive oil and - POOF! - you've got yourself a salad.

- Whizz them up with the stock of your choice (veggie, chicken, whatever) using an immersion blender, add some cream or plain yogurt if you're feeling naughty (full fat, please), and you've just made a roasted vegetable cream soup.

- Or stick'em between two slices of baguette or any other type of nice bread, with some goat cheese and some sprouts or microgreens (and maybe a slice of bacon if you're Marc) for an awesome sandwich.

By the time roasting was done, I just sprinkled some goat cheese on these particular veggies and served them as a main course with some lovely rosemary and garlic baguette from Art is In. If it hadn't been dark outside, I would have gone to the garden for an addition of freshly chopped parsley, but that was too much work.

The light was getting a bit low - sorry!

Voilà! See you next post!

Je m'appelle Ca-rotte-rotte-rotte...

I couldn't help humming this little song from my childhood when I began pulling out the first carrots from my garden... They were just so pretty, the childish enthusiasm took over! I'd wandered down to the veggie patch as Marc was finishing up the last bits of dinner (nothing says "Honey, dinner was delicious" like the sound of a fork scraping the bottom of the salad bowl), and found a big orange carrot top staring back at me from under its bright green fronds. I took a chance and yanked - it was ready! So I yanked a few more, and found a few specimens of each colour, ready for the tasting. Yummy crunchiness.

So here are a few snaps I gleefully took while munching. Stay tuned for a carrot "something" soon in an upcoming post!

P.S. Apologies for the long delay between posts - it's just been bananas lately. Not literally, though. I promise, I'll get better at this.

See you next post!

Hot, hot, heat - what to eat?

Yeeeeeah... When it's 47 degrees with the humidex, there's no way I'm barbecuing, sautéing or turning my oven on. So what's for dinner? Well, I scrounged around in my fridge and found the following to make something tasty: local organic broccoli (partly softened because of my forgetfulness - you'd think that when you pay $4.99 for a broccoli, you wouldn't abandon it in your crisper for a week and a half), a half used-up red onion, an unopened tub of sour cream (expiring in three days - what is wrong with me?!?), and a bag of pecan halves.

Thankfully, I'd just come back from the Gatineau Costco with a abundant selection of lovely Québécois cheeses (NEVER go there before dinner! Go in for toilet paper, leave with fifty tons of dairy. Stupid seductive cheese.) I'd also stopped by my favourite boulangerie, which will be featured in an upcoming GMZ, to pick up the best traditional baguette in town, so I knew this broccoli-sour cream concoction would be a salad of some sort. So away I went!

First, I broke up the broccoli into bite-size florets and steamed them until they were al dente and that beautiful, brilliant shade of jade green. Then I plunged them into an ice bath to stop the cooking and prevent them from turning that gross, overcooked-army-fatigue green. While they were cooling off, I got on with the dressing.

I finely chopped some of the red onion until I roughly had 1/4 cup. I threw that in a bowl and then slopped on four or five greedily full tablespoons of sour cream with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, tasting to make sure the flavour was to my liking.

Then, I threw in the broccoli and tossed it around to make sure every last floret was coated in creamy deliciousness.

Finally, I chopped up a small handful of pecans (this could also work with another sweet nut, like toasted almond slivers), and scattered them on top of the salad. There. Poof. Done.

Marc and I then set up din-dins outside and had the salad, with the baguette and cheese as accompaniments, and a fine glass of rosé from the BIB. Please pardon the less-than-Gourmet-magazine-worthy Arizona themed plates. The dishwasher was full, and we hadn't done a load in time for the impromptu photo shoot...

That was a damn tasty hot summer night dinner (partly thanks to Marc filling those wine glasses nearly to the brim... Holy moley!) If I were to make the salad again, however, I'd probably give the broccoli a bit more of a shake to remove as much water as possible before adding it to the dressing. You've got to have the thick richness of the sour cream to make the broccoli sing.

Bongo loves broccoli.

Ti-Gars too!

À la prochaine!

Garden update - Dad wins. Again.

Pretty!

Marc brought this home after seeing my dad this week. It was in a bag with three other courgettes and two massive cucumbers. Yup. Dad wins the "first edible plant of the season" and the "I'm the first to have enough veggies to go around" awards. Again. HOW DOES HE DO IT?!? 

And it was so close! Two days later, I pulled out this beautiful little golden beet from my garden. Marc and I had ourselves a party and ceremoniously ate it. Because that's its destiny.

It was quite delicious, although I over boiled it a bit. I kept those lovely beet greens for a later salad or just for wilting in the pan with some butter, salt and pepper. Here's something I discovered : I was always frustrated when I bought beet greens and they'd be wilted in just over 24 hours if I left them in the fridge.  So this time, I just placed them in an oversized drinking glass with a bit of water (I guess you could use a vase if it was SQUEAKY clean - I've been told I'm a bit of a germ / gross -o-phobe), left them on the kitchen counter like any flower arrangement and voilà! The greens are still nice and perky 48 hours later. 

That's it for now, kids! À plus tard!

GMZ : Gatineau Munching Zone

I've always loved discovering secret treasures of food and fabulousness in the area where I reside. Some years ago, I realized this had become a bit of an obsession when I noticed I'd been regularly cutting off people mid-conversation to blurt out stuff like: "Stained glass? Hey, there's a really great workshop just a few blocks from here!" I don't have to tell you that when you're having a conversation about a church being demolished in Rosemont, nobody cares about the two hippies up the street who are making Tiffany-inspired billiard hall lighting... Awk-ward.

Anyhoo, it's with that obsession in mind that I offer you this first report in an initiative that will henceforth be known as... the GMZ (Gatineau Munching Zone). In this feature, I will happily reveal the fun foodie finds that may help save a few trips across the bridge to those of us who have made the jump to the P.Q. side. I also hope this helps reveal and highlight how Gatineau has a wonderful cachet of its own, without taking anything away from the gloriousness of Ottawa... with its beautiful T&T grocery.... (insert jealous grumblings here...)

Of course, I'm not getting any sort of payback from these businesses in exchange for my promoting them... It's just karma: you're nice to me and provide me with good products? I plug your shop.

So here's the first find: Aladdin Roastery!

I looove me a good cup of coffee. Sadly, my nervous personality combined with my body's tendency to retaliate with severe tummy aches whenever I ingest caffeine, tannins or other irritants make decaf my only option when it comes to el cafe. Enter Aladdin Roastery, with two locations: one on Gréber near LaVérendrye in Gatineau, and one on St-Joseph right next to Autoroute 5 in Hull. They roast their coffee on site, and they're well on their way to carrying only free trade and organic coffee (most of them already are, including the DELICIOUS decafs.) The staff is always extremely helpful and friendly, and their knowledge of the different coffees they offer is impressive.

Aladdin is also a gourmet shop where you can pick up a variety of foods from chocolates to dried fruits to specialty salts and everything in between (I always grab some nougat when I get to the cash - that stuff's like crack, I swear). Finally, they have a beautiful selection of teas, herbal or not. Try the Turkish Apple tisane; it's lip-smackingly good with its big chunks of apple and citrus, and I suspect it would make a beautiful iced tea at half the price of David's.

Voilà... I think I'm going to have to make up a logo for this GMZ feature. Sort of like a "seal of approval" thingie. Love it. Thanks to Perf Daddy for starting the ball rolling!

À plus tard, les copains!

My luxurious melons

For as long as I can remember, there has been a food garden for every summer of my life - either planted by myself or by my equally food-obsessed and childishly enthusiastic father. The enthusiasm is rather contagious (or maybe just inherited?) - every year, both of us try to cram as many plants in as many varieties as we can into our respective gardens, just because it's so much fun to be ridiculously overwhelmed by an overabundance of beautiful produce. Anytime we see each other between mid-July and late August, conversations always start with "You won't BELIEVE how many (insert name of produce here) I had in the garden this morning! Fifty six! Here. I brought you some."

The ridiculousness may take a break this year, however, depending on my talents as a gardener... I've gone nearly completely heirloom and organic this year, and it's my first time growing stuff that can't be picked up at the local Canadian Tire or Botanix nursery. I've planted mostly everything from seed, directly in the garden (remember :*finger pointing towards self*, lazy person over here) - so we'll see what happens.

All of my plants come from this wonderful little nursery called Greta's Organic Gardens in Gloucester (keep driving south on Riverside after crossing Hunt Club), which specializes in organic and heirloom species. Greta knows her plants and is always extremely helpful in helping you decide which ones would best suit your preferences. She's also a seasoned veteran of chemical-free pest warfare; if something's in your garden, she'll know how to get rid of it. After chatting with her on a rainy Victoria Day weekend, I came home with a haul that would make Dad proud:

• tomatoes (those were plants, not seeds. I'm lazy, not crazy) : Black from Tula, Black Russian, Black Seaman, Isis Candy, Gold Nugget, Ottawa 39, Mrs. Botts' Italian, Kenosha
• pole beans : Trionfo Violetta (purple, yay!), Blue Lake (green)
• carrots : Chantenay (orange), Yellowstone (guess!), Cosmic Purple (cue Jamiroquai)
• beets : Chioggia (red and white candy-stripe), Touchstone Gold
• Romanian Sweet peppers (three plants)
• Mid-East Prolific cucumbers (from seed - I planted ten of them. Aiigh!)
• the requisite herbs to add to my perennial thyme and chives: two types of basil (non-flowering!), parsley, spearmint and mojito mint, rosemary

Aaaaaand last but not least, the plants that I'm most excited about, MY LUXURIOUS MELONS! Technically, they're called Noir de Carmes and Petit Gris de Rennes. I'd never thought of growing melons (bad return on investment, space-wise), but how could I not after reading the following line in the Noir's online catalog description? "One of the easiest to grow and most luxurious of all melons..." I had to get them! Of course, I planted all of my squash-family seeds too deep the first time, so the plants have only been growing since I realized my mistake halfway through June and replanted... But Greta says there's still time for me to have bountiful melons, so I'll keep hope. And laugh every time I say that.

The beginnings of my luxurious melons...

See you next post, and Happy Canada Day!