So, I’ve come to think that there are, indeed, some benefits to eating (at least some) raw and/or vegan foods. Firstly, after seven days, I’m feeling really good – don’t really miss meat or, more importantly, cheese (granted, I did a bunch of research and preparation, but still thought I’d be freaking out by now). Secondly – and unexpectedly! – I’ve lost 4.5 lbs without turning homicidal!! Seriously, though, if you’re a Foodie, don’t even think for a minute of doing a “cleanse” without a lot of prep and determination!!

Ultimately, though, I think it’s pretty groovy to realise that many of our favourite foods – especially in the summer – correspond to a “green”, “raw” and even vegan approach to living. So here’s one of my favourite snackin’ recipes – put it together with our Mango Strawberry Salsa and you’ve got a perfect match that’ll make you feel good, both inside and out!

Oh, and don’t forget our recipe for The Perfect Margarita – less “cleansing”, but more fun!! Find the recipe for a rockin’ sockin’ guac after the break…!

Guacamole

2 medium to large ripe avocados, split, pitted and hulled
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small lime, juiced (apx 1.5 oz/3 Tbsp/450 ml juice)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Cilantro leaves, for garnish

In a medium, non-metallic bowl, mash the avocado with a masher or a fork until relatively smooth. Immediately add the garlic, lime juice, salt and pepper and continue to mash or whisk to form a smooth paste. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve immediately or follow the note below to refrigerate for up to 8 hours.

Notes:

I like really garlicky guac; this stuff might even fighten a vampire – but I’ve never had any complaints, just lots of requests for the recipe!! For a tamer version, use only 2 cloves of garlic, instead!

Avocado is prone to browning – hence the need for the lime. To keep for any period of time, press a piece of plastic wrap onto the entire surface of the guacamole – there should be no air between the guac and the plastic. Secure the plastic to the bowl and refrigerate.

My pal, who is not a Foodie, says, “I hate recipes that say ‘add some fresh herbs’ or ‘add salt and pepper to taste’. Which herbs? How much salt and pepper?” As a guideline for this particular recipe, I added roughly ½ teaspoon/2.5 ml salt and a teaspoon/5 ml freshly ground pepper – maybe a bit more. Whatever you do, start slowly… taste… then add more, if you like. You can always add, but you can’t take away!!

To keep this a raw, green and vegan snack, serve with thin slices of cucumber or zucchini, or whatever other veggies you like. To keep it vegetarian, organic and gluten-free, try Mary’s Crackers (they’re awesome). Or, use organic (or even regular) tortilla chips – still vegetarian!

How else to use guac?? Put it on a sammy or wrap!! It goes with all manner of veg, poultry or leftover beef!! How about as a side for a steak and blue cheese salad??

Enjoy!

~ One of Seven

So, things have changed pretty radically for me, since our move back to Ontario and our 145 days of All-Barbeque-All-The-Time…!! I’m back into Iyengar Yoga (an obsession of mine, from pre-Alberta days) and so healthy living and eating are back… um… on the table… so to speak. One of my crazy yoga buds (oh, we’re a *crazy* bunch, all right!) has recently compelled me to join her in a SPRING CLEANSE, if you can believe it!! Now, we’re not doing the “kit” thing or the “pill” thing – it’s all about food (well, for me, at least – no spirulina capsules for this yogini!). So, I might just be sharing some tasty vegetarian or vegan taste-testers as I go along – I mean, I might as well be optimistic, right?? Maybe it’ll turn out this is what’s truly meant by “cleansing the palate”….

Appetizers. Far from a food course, they are often what sets you apart as a superstar in the kitchen. Unfortunately, this need to create a spectacular first impression often drives otherwise sane people to attempt the most insane creations.

Remember my wannabe Food Network Chef, some of the best food on the planet is simple!

Crostini. Simplicity at its best.

Toast with stuff on it. Doesn’t everyone except the occasional unfortunate gluten free freakshow love toast? Few guests don’t flip when a platter full of crostini are carried through the room and you can almost guarantee that you will run out, no matter how well prepared you are. The really cool thing here is that the possibilities are truly only limited by your imagination.

Recipe? What recipe?

The most common choice for the base of a crostini is the baguette thanks to a rather convenient shape and the ability to cut it into fairly similar size pieces. These days, we have regular white baguettes, whole wheat, sour dough, multi grain, cinnamon raisin and who knows what other varieties.

The basics remain the same:
Cut across the bread to create rounds. Layer the rounds on a cookie sheet. Drizzle or brush them with oil. I like olive oil, but whatever is handy will work. Recently, we were given a spicy Cuban dipping oil. Once we bored of dipping, it was perfect for drizzling. Preheat the oven to 400ish and then slide your tray of bread slices into the oven. Keep an occasional eye on them. Do not start talking and forget about them! 2 glasses of wine later, your bread is a smoky waste. When they are toasty brown, remove them from the oven and let them cool.

The nice thing about crostini as an app is that you can toast the bread the day before. This makes prep a breeze while you are hanging with your peeps! Also, you are less likely to burn your toasts!

Now the fun part: Toppings

Way back in the archives, we made some funky peppered pork crostini but for this version we’re going to get simple. Stupidly simple.

Simple does not mean boring, as these are so full of flavor that your guests will rave about them. They’ll also have no idea that you used a store bought short cut. I’ve said this before, but President’s Choice makes some awesome products that make life so much simpler.

First off, cut a sweet onion in half. Then, cut half round sections. Sauté the onions in a bit of EVOO and butter until they are translucent and slightly browned. Don’t burn them because they will look like crap and your guests will notice. They might not say anything, but they’ll notice!
How many onions you make depends on how many guests you are feeding.

Open the PC Sundried Tomato Pesto and spread a small spoonful on each toast. Pile on a small amount of the sautéed onions and top with the cheese of your choice. We had a big brick of Silani Friulano which shaved off nicely and melts perfectly with the onions.

That’s it. So simple, yet your guests will be blown away. The PC pesto brings a big hit of tomatoey goodness that is sure to wow the peeps.

I’ve said it before, don’t be afraid to use some pre packaged basics. Sure you look like a hero when you tell people you made the pesto, but the reality is that this is so much easier when feeding a crowd.

There are few foods as satisfying to the soul as a fresh, soft bagel. Except perhaps a fresh, soft, warm bagel slathered in equally fresh whipped cream cheese. While bagels may not be considered soul food, there is no question they are food for the soul.

Bagels are also a source of great debate. Some love Montreal style, while New Yorker’s claim theirs are the best. Ex-Pats from both of those towns look down upon Toronto bagels, claiming their home style is the supreme.

Having grown up in Greater Toronto, I obviously have an affinity for our style of bagels. There is no better bagel than the wonderfully soft rounds that come from a nondescript little shop on Bathurst Street. Gryfe’s Bagel Bakery has been lovingly making bagels since 1957.

The staple of Gryfe’s bagel-dom is the poppyseed bagel, which marries a decadently soft bagel with the little black seeds which add both flavour and texture to the outer surface. I hesitate to call it a crust, as it is anything but. Equally tempting are their everything bagels, which add yet another layer of flavour to the mix.

For those looking for a quick snack or with kids at home, Gryfe’s also makes the most incredible mini pizzas. With a soft crust and just a tiny bit of tomato sauce and cheese, these pies are perfect at room temperature. Heat them if you must, but it is not needed.

To fully get your breakfast fill, cream cheese is a must, but not just any old cream cheese will do. On our visit yesterday, we dropped by Daiter’s Fresh Market, just a few doors north of Gryfe’s, and picked up some of their house made whipped cream cheese. Daiter’s has been making soft cheeses since 1937, so you know they’ve got it right.

Both styles are wonderful with cream cheese, but I dare you to make the trip home without pulling one of the warm treats out of the bag. Go ahead, nobody will notice just one missing!

Gryfe’s Bagel Bakery is located at 3421 Bathurst Street in Toronto. There is no parking out front, so be prepared to go hunting on the side streets for a spot. They accept cash only and the closest bank machine is a long walk north at the 7/11.

The weather this Spring has been excellent and that means that activities like end of season hockey parties are being held outside already. Today’s party is a road hockey get together. What could be more Canadian than beer, food and road hockey? It is also a pot luck and we were trying to think of an easy dish suitable for scarfing on the run. We didn’t have to look too far, as we’ve decided to fall back on Chef Nicky’s pizza boats.

Today we’ve made the same traditional chunky pepperoni boats and grilled chicken bbq boats we made last time, but we’ve also added in a steak variety. We’ve used cheap steak that has been rubbed with a smoky President’s Choice steak rub and it will pair with some sweet tomato sauce, caramelized onions and cheese. The gang is gonna love these!

Having spent too much time in front of the computer one day last week, Mamma Gee and I retired to the anti chamber, whereupon we commenced channel surfing. As there were no vampire shows on, the remote magically made its way to SpeedTV. Imagine that! We came across The Racing Chef and since combining food and racing is like food for my soul, we stuck around. Chef Nicky Morse’s style isn’t our usual TV chef fare, but he presented this super easy tailgate party idea that looked like a lot of fun. What Chef Nicky didn’t mention is that Pizza Boats are also great food for the kids to make.

In the show, Morse and his guest (I hate to admit I don’t remember the guy’s name) made four different styles of PB, showing just how easy it is to feed a crowd with a wide variety of tastes.

After the break, we’ve got instructions and lots of great photos. I’m not going to list any ingredients for this one, as all you need are a couple of baguettes and your imagination.

To begin with, tear off a couple of sheets of aluminum foil that are slightly longer than your bread and scrunch up the sides a bit to resemble a boat. Cut your load in half horizontally as if you were cutting it to make garlic bread. This is a task best left to Mom or Dad or older kids if they are competent with a knife. Now the fun begins and the kids can take over.

Tear out the middle of both halves, so you have a trough to contain your toppings. Set the torn out bits aside to make croutons or something. Or, like us, you can dip them in whatever is handy.

You might even be bad and toss one or two at the dog. Just so long as Mom isn’t watching!

A big part of this recipe is making something fun and easy, so we used the ever present Ragu spaghetti sauce for this one. The kids like it and it is easy. As you can see, 9 year old Riley enjoyed spooning in a layer of tomatoey goodness.

As this example is a kid friendly traditional version, we chose pepperoni as the next topping. Never wanting to be conventional though, Riley added in a heavy layer of meaty chunks.

What else would you put on top of a pepperoni PB but a thick layer of cheesiness. Sticking with our easy theme, we worked with a pre packaged, Tex Mex, grated cheese to add a bit of spice and colour.

Pop these puppies in a preheated (400 deg F) oven for about 20 minutes or till nicely browned and the cheese is bubbly. Remove and let them cool a bit before cutting. The foil boats make transporting the PB’s easy and clean up is a snap.

Mom and Dad wanted to switch things up a bit, so we decided to do a BBQ version including grilled chicken. Earlier in the week we had found a giant bottle of Budweiser BBQ sauce at Costco that looked nice so this was a perfect opportunity to give it a test drive.

We grilled a couple of boneless, skinless, chicken breasts and slathered them in the sauce. While they rested, we spooned in a layer of Bud BBQ sauce into the boat. Thinly slice the chicken and stuff the trough and then smother it with the Tex Mex cheese. Heavenly!

Beyond the kid friendly aspect, the beauty of these is that the possibilities are endless. Chef Nicky piled on some massive raw shrimp, which looked perfectly juicy after cooking. You wouldn’t want to precook them, as they would be rubber. You could use alfredo pasta sauce with grilled veggies topped with asiago cheese. Beef, onions and peppers might look like a hoagie, but you know your guests would gobble them up. Regardless of what you choose to fill them with, the kids will love them and so will the guests at your next party!

What fillings are you going to try?

Once again I have to comment on the joys of working from home. When a craving hits as lunch time approaches, it is easy to just root around in the fridge and find the ingredients for what you want. What you really, really want.

Sorry, lame girl band reference from the Nineties.

Anyway, today it occurred to me that we had some wonderful spiral ham left over from Easter weekend and a couple of sausages from the weekend. Hmmmm. Eggs, onions, ham, sausage and shredded cheddar. Sounds like omelette time to me!

No recipe this time, just some photos. If you are reading FAB, I’m going to assume that you have an idea how to make an omelette.

Oh yes, one more thing: I added in a few healthy dashes of chipotle hot sauce. This was lunch, not breakfast!

Mise en place

A fancy French term that the Culinary Institute of America defines as everything in place. Essentially, it is a chef’s way of knowing he has his shit together for a service. All of the items and food stuffs he or she might need during a lunch or dinner service is prepared and close at hand in an organized and familiar fashion so it is all where it is expected to be.

To some home cooks, like Sandy, this means getting absolutely everything you need out of the cupboard beforehand and then working around it while preparing a dish. Me? The kitchen counter is one of the few places I seem to be capable of being organized. I like everything I need properly prepped before I begin cooking so I’m not dicing and slicing and pushing stuff around while I’m cooking.

Of course that organization only goes so far. Tonight we are making a somewhat modified version of Noodles with Spicy Ground Pork from Tastes of Home. The store only had 2 small packages of udon noodles, so we decided to use miki noodles instead. We were going to add in some baby bok choy, but we forgot to buy it. One of the kids isn’t so fond of super spicy, so I was going to use the chili sauce we had in the fridge instead of chili peppers. Had being the key word. No problem, some chili & garlic sauce will do nicely instead.

Having your meez in order is important, but so is being flexible enough to try new things and roll with the punches. After a few tries, that flexibility will become confidence. Confidence to trust your instincts and just let the flavors flow. Once you get to that point, the world is your stir fry!

Beef Wellington is one of those dishes that people tend to be terrified of. It just seems to be such an elegant and complex dish that we all think it must be incredibly difficult to make. When I announced that we were making Wellies for Valentines Day dinner, Mooby was a bit concerned that we might not be able to pull it off. I quite literally sent him to the den to check out a great video that would simplify things greatly.

The great thing about Gordon Ramsey’s show The F Word is that during each show he does a quick bit where he condenses a seemingly complicated dish into just a few minutes worth of video. In the following video, he shortens the process of making Beef Wellington into just over 2 minutes, completely removing the fright factor from the process.

After the break, we embark on our own recipe free version of Beef Wellies that include a couple of twists.

We began by cleaning up a whole beef tenderloin as I described yesterday and chose our sections. While the large, non stick pan was heating with olive oil, we seasoned the beef and then seared it in the hot pan. Timing can be a bit of a challenge if you haven’t worked with tenderloin before as it cooks quickly. You want to sear the beef and partially cook through, but not so much that it over cooks in the oven later in the process.

While I seared the beef, Mooby worked on the assortment of shrooms. Cleaned them, stemmed them and then attempted to pulse them in our tiny, $20 food processor. As often happens while there is vino involved in cooking, there was carnage. Fortunately, no fungi were lost as the processor shot fragments of itself across the kitchen!

Yes Chef! The shrooms were indeed full of moisture. We sauteed the moisture from the processed forest fungi and then added a healthy dose of Jack Daniels just to add a bit of fun. We cooked that down too, until the liquid had been absorbed.

Ramsey loves to get in the occasional dig at the French, but we just couldn’t wrap our heads around slathering cheap ass prepared mustard on our meat so we used dijon. Apparently I forgot to take photos of this part of the process. As I said, there was wine involved. Lots of it.

Now the assembly begins. Position a long chunk of plastic wrap, saran or the British cling film on your cutting board. Lay out however many slices of prosciutto as you need to wrap your meat. Mind out of the gutter…I meant your beef…oh crap, you know what I mean! Overlap them so the shroomage will be contained evenly. Spoon out your mushroom mixture evenly, spreading it out across the yummy smoked pork goodness.
Place your beef across the mushroom mixture and carefully, using the wrap, roll the prosciutto and mushroom around the beef. Wrap it together tightly and put it in the fridge to cool for about 20 minutes or the time it takes you to enjoy a glass of wine. 2 glasses if you use those wimpy little 2 oz glasses.

Like most kids, ours abhor mushrooms. Well, that isn’t entirely accurate, as 2 of them enjoy raw shrooms but despise cooked ones. Go figure. We weren’t about to skimp on our own adult pleasures just because there are short people in the house, so we improvised. Costco sells massive bags of Hormel real bacon bits. Our kids love bacon. We prepared a second wellie with bacon bits instead of mushrooms. Mooby was skeptical, but the end result was wicked and the kids loved it.

Not only does this go along with the theory that everything tastes better with bacon, but it also shows that a recipe is just a guide. Tweak it as you see fit for your tastes.

Next up, store bought puff pastry. This stuff is so good that there really no reason for making your own. Thaw the pastry as per the instructions and then unroll it on your cutting board, leaving the parchment in place. Brush egg wash around the edge to ensure a good seal once you wrap it up. Unwrap your bundle of beefy goodness and place it at one end of the pastry. Then, carefully roll the lump of meat from one side to the other while drawing the trailing edge of the pastry along for the ride.
When you are done, press together the ends of the pastry to seal it all together. You should have something that looks something like these puppies. If you haven’t consumed enough wine to inebriate a small nation, they will probably look better than ours. Don’t fret over being too neat though, as once your guests see the final results they are going to be impressed regardless of how neat a wrapping job you did.
Brushing the remaining egg wash over the entire wellie will ensure that your pastry has a delightful golden crust when it is cooked.

Once you have brushed the eggie liquid on the pasty, you might want to work on presentation before baking the wellies. Very gently, score a diamond pattern across the pastry, being careful not to cut through the pastry. A very fine cut line is all that you need to make yourself look like a baking master.

Perhaps the most important element to cooking a dish like this is missing from the video. How long do I cook it and at what temperature? If I recall correctly (it was a month ago and did I mention that there was copious amounts of wine involved?) we set the oven to 375 degrees F and cooked it for about a half hour. The most important thing about any beef tenderloin is that it must not be over cooked. We aimed for an internal temperature of about 140-145 degrees, which is medium rare, knowing that it would be approaching medium once the meat had rested for a while.

Once you have allowed your spectacular beef loaves to rest for 10-15 minutes (or longer if you are somewhat sauced), you are ready to slice. Using your sharpest large knife or a good quality bread knife, cut it into slices that are on the thicker side of one inch.

When the main course is something this flavorful and awe inspiring, not to mention time consuming, it is better to keep the sides and presentation simple. We served our wellies with steamed asparagus and goat cheese mashed potatoes. The kids loved their special version and the double pig shot of bacon and prosciutto worked perfectly. The JD shroomage was just what the doctor ordered.

Beef Wellington may sound like a scary dish to prepare, but really it just needs a bit of confidence and good timing in the kitchen. Beyond that it is a really simple dish that is guaranteed to wow your guests.

After spending the morning at the computer today, we headed out into the sun for a walk with the dog. Upon returning home, I pulled out a head of lettuce, gave it a quick chop and then julienned some veggies. I tossed it all in some store bought sun dried tomato dressing and we had a lovely, healthy lunch in less than 5 minutes.

Sometimes simple really is best!