As I’ve mentioned before, I do 99% of the cooking at home.

But several years ago, I got fed up with this arrangement and inferred that the Everyman should cook at least one of our meals a week.

Don’t get me wrong.  Out of the 21 meals we typically eat weekly, I wouldn’t say I prepare all of them.  On the occasional night that I don’t feel like cooking, the Everyman will suggest ordering in rather than cooking anything himself.  Then there are times when we go out to dinner or brunch, at least one of which generally happens once or twice a month.  I don’t go out of my way to cook things for lunches, but I am the one who packs up all of the leftovers with extras in the morning.  To put it simply, I do quite a bit and sometimes the balance seems more than a little unfair.

For a while the Everyman was cooking dinner on a fairly regular basis, and we even christened Thursdays as “survive the Everyman’s cooking” nights, since he’s such a fan of Survivor.  But for the last 9 months or so he’s been taking night school, so these survival dinners fell by the wayside and were more often than not replaced by a suggestion of takeout.  Obviously, not the ideal situation for either of our health or waistlines, not to mention takeout can get boring really fast.

As of this week, the Everyman is finished with his night school courses, so I was only too eager to chide him into returning to this weekly slot in the kitchen.  After a few gentle prods he obliged, so I give you the inaugural meal from “survive the Everyman’s cooking” 2010: roasted tomato and garlic soup!

He started with a recipe he’d made for me once before for a plain roasted tomato and garlic soup, and tweaked it in a few, subtle ways to make it his own.  We’d both enjoyed the soup the first time around, but found it  spare of flavours, so this time the Everyman decided to boost them with the addition of some harissa, epazote and paprika to make the dish truly sparkle.  Because I was extra hungry for dinner that day, I requested some form of protein, so the Everyman tossed in half a can of black beans to fortify the soup even further.  Lastly, he diced a couple of tortillas into strips and browned them in a skillet until they were crispy and charred around the edges.  A sprinkling on top gave the soup great textural contrast and added to my enjoyment when I started animatedly tossing them into our bowls.

I think this one’s a keeper!

Until next time…

Gratefully lucky to have the last week of the year off, I spent the morning running around town exchanging other peoples’ presents for them.

A gift for the Everyman was exchanged for several others in a more suitable size, while a duplicate Avedon book for his brother in-law was returned until something better arises.

After braving the calmer-than-expected Eaton Centre, I intended to head over to the AGO to wander around a few exhibits and then have lunch at Frank, but the blisteringly cold weather had other plans for me.  Losing the feeling in my fingertips, I opted to hop a streetcar and head to The Hoof Cafe for lunch instead.

Once I arrived, I noticed that one of Toronto’s favourite food writers (Corey Mintz) was having lunch in the window, and as much as I might’ve wanted to introduce myself, I’m no groupie, so I kept to myself and hunkered down at the bar.

A short while later with a glass of wine in hand, I had a veritable smörgåsbord spread out in front of me.

The solution for such cold and gloomy weather was a bowl of richly flavoured brodo, a beef broth full of shaved turnips and greens, topped by a crunchy cornmeal crisp.  Once I’d slurped a few spoonfuls, I vowed to learn how to make it myself, because it was absolutely exquisite, and the perfect way to take the edge off such harsh and blustery weather.

Woman cannot live on soup alone though, so I supplemented with a side of toast and jam, and some sabodet sausages with lentils.  The sausage and lentils left me with that creamy porky mouth feel that is so helpful for signalling satiety, and also happened to be delish too!

The best part of all is that I still have 2 more days to enjoy the meaty decadence before I go back to work.  I love staycations!

Until next time…

As I mentioned to DMSinTexas the other day, I spent the better part of an afternoon this weekend flipping through How To Cook Everything Vegetarian in an effort to get inspired.

After a bit of random perusal I gravitated towards the soup chapter, which coincidentally is one of my most favourite kinds of vegetarian meals. As much as I generally love poring over a good cookbook and becoming immersed in it, I’ve come to realize that the only time I cook from a recipe is when baking is involved, and even then I’ve taken to winging it more often than not. Of course, since I have such difficulty following a recipe, I didn’t make anything from the book that day, but it did set a few ideas whirring around my brain.

So, it should come as no surprise to my readers that the first recipe I did make was not technically a vegetarian recipe at all (if only because it contained no vegetables) but rather a bread recipe.  With the aid of a little advanced planning, I managed to turn out a fairly decent version of Bittman’s overnight French baguettes.

But, before any of you start getting indignant and accusing me of copping out and picking something that is only inherently vegetarian, allow me to explain;

I picked the baguettes because a) they’re a pretty decent litmus test for the general usability of a cookbook’s recipes and b) I needed something to mop up the vegetarian soup I decided to invent.

Yes, that’s right.  Vegetarian soup.

You see, the day after I’d been reading How To Cook Everything Vegetarian it was getting chilly out, and all of a sudden I felt the urge to make something warming and wonderful.  I threw open the fridge and cupboards and found an abundance of root vegetables stockpiled from several weeks’ worth of CSA deliveries.  My decision to combine the 2 acorn and 1 delicata squashes with 2 sweet potatoes and 2 zucchinis stemmed more from a desire to not let anything go to waste than from a sudden burst of inspiration, though.

After halving everything, I drizzled with a little bit of coffee oil and sprinkled the whole with a generous dose of ras al hanout.  Roasted in the oven until soft and yielding, the warm pulp was scooped from the skins and shells and added to my Dutch oven.  A splash of water and my stick blender were all that was necessary to turn the lumpy mass into a lusciously creamless, but silky soup.  Garnished with a round of Woolwich fig chevre and a side of crusty baguette, it was a little bowl of heaven that also happened to be meatless. The ras al hanout provided a sweetly fragrant complex smokiness to the roasted veg, while the fig chevre balanced it with a mildly assertive tang.  Considering that I just threw the ingredients together so that nothing would go bad, it actually turned out to be quite an enjoyable meal, and one that I would definitely make again.

Imagine that!  I guess I’m not so bad at this vegetarian thing after all.

Until next time…

It all started out innocently enough; we were driving home from work and discussing what to have for dinner.  I mentioned some ideas I had for things I was going to cook, and the Everyman sounded mildly interested.  Then, all of a sudden he started smirking, and said, “I got paid today, so I know what we can do…“  Being tired and not fully catching his drift, it took me a while to figure out what he was alluding to.  Once he said it though, I couldn’t not go…

And so, with that, my good intentions to go home, hop on the elliptical and cook a sensible dinner went right out the window and down the street to The Black Hoof.

The place was packed, as it had been on our last visit, and we happened to score the last open 2 top, a fact that happened to make a gentleman waiting on a table for 3 a bit steamed.  As we sat down we both noticed that the menu was still the same, as one would expect when less than a week has passed since your last visit.  The problem we both have with this place is that all of the food is just so incredible and what you haven’t tried sounds so damned good that it’s hard to limit yourself to moderate portions.  All I needed to know was what the dessert of the day would be so I could decide whether I wanted 2 or 3 dishes.

It turned out the dessert was the same (lemon tart with lavender and white chocolate), so I opted (somewhat sadly) for 2 dishes instead.  I revisited the cabbage soup with marrow and toasts, and found it to be just as luxurious and satisfyingly salty as the last time.  I also confirmed that the version of this soup that I concocted at home last Sunday does taste remarkably similar to this soup too (recipe follows).  The Everyman opted to not venture outside of his comfort zone from the last time and instead chose to conduct what he calls the test for consistency.  He ordered the same dishes he’d had (just less of them) in order to see whether they were still being prepared as well as he remembered.  The lamb merguez with queso and tomatillo again stunned him, and he felt that the portion was larger this time.  I, on the other hand, felt that the bone marrow portion of my dish was smaller, and was even inconsistent when compared to other diners around me who had ordered it.  I did still manage to dole out a pile to the Everyman, and it was still delicious, but I just wished I’d had more.  And they really do need to find a more slender instrument to scoop the marrow out with, because that demitasse is just not cutting it and by the end of the endeavor my hands felt like I’d been trying to juice bacon.

Next, I opted to break away and try something new.  The marinated octopus with chorizo had sounded delectable, but I wanted to see it in action.  Unfortunately I was unable to get a glimpse of it before we ordered, so that would have to wait for another day.  The Everyman saw a table near him order one and reported back to me that it was served in a small preserving jar with a snap lid.  I still couldn’t see it, but the face of the woman eating it said enough to make me want to try it the next time.  I toyed with the idea of ordering the small charcuterie board as the rest of my meal, but the Everyman really is the one who loves the cured meats more than I do.  If I had ordered it, it would only have been in the hope that it had that luscious duck mousse on it again.  I lean more towards the cheese side of the board anyway, and since I knew their cheese came from the Cheese Boutique, I wasn’t going to order something I could easily go home and assemble myself.  Unlike the table of girls sitting next to us who were there longer than we were and ate nothing but a small cheese board between them with a bottle of wine.  I mean, really, why wouldn’t you just stay home at that point?  You’re not eating anything made by the actual restaurant (cheeses – Cheese Boutique, bread – Thuet, wine – who knows but obviously wasn’t made in house).  To the Everyman and I, that bordered on insulting the chef.

At any rate, I ended up with the creamed kale and prosciutto, and the Everyman with the cassoulet.  I’d spied a chef hefting the mammoth hunk of prosciutto to place it on the meat slicer and had gotten excited about it.  It did not disappoint in the slightest.  The kale had that wonderful chewy crunch to it, and the prosciutto added the right amount of nutty, salty, sweetness.  It was at this point in the evening that I remarked to the Everyman that my dinner selections made me feel almost vegetarian, as the meat in both dishes was clearly more of a garnish or accent than the focal point.  The Everyman had a good belly laugh about that one while digging into his cassoulet.  For consistency’s sake this also appeared to be larger, and had much more pork belly atop it than the last time, but less duck confit, and now also appeared with bread.  So much so that the Everyman actually gave me a chunk of the best looking piece of pork belly to have on bread (this right here is how I know that he loves me; he always saves the best pieces of my favorite things for me, and I do the same for him).  Now we were both thoroughly stuffed, and we hadn’t even had half the amount of food that we’d ordered the last time.

For dessert I already knew that I wanted the lemon tart, bloatiness be damned.  The Everyman had previously told our server that he’d like the duck confit puff as his dessert, but changed his mind at the last minute and ordered his own lemon tart, probably fearful that I wouldn’t share enough with him.  I love this dish enough that he’d probably be right.  This time, because it wasn’t being wrapped to go, we got the full benefit of the presentation with the pool of dark blueberry balsamic sauce.  I noticed that our slices were not the same size, and pouted inside a little.  Then I dug in and forgot about it.  This is what magic is made of!  I vowed to learn how to make this dessert at home too, even though under normal circumstances I despise lavender.  It turns out that they do not even make this tart in-house, but rather outsource it to a pastry chef who is a friend of the owner and works at the Palais Royale.  I like it so much that I actually ordered some organic lavender just so I can try to recreate it.  The Everyman laughed quite a lot about this too, and also about the fact that I preferred the tart without the sauce because I couldn’t taste the lavender when combined with the blueberries.  The times, they are a changing.  With a glass of cava it came pretty damn close to the perfect way to end a meal.  We both agreed it is probably the second best restaurant we’d ever been to, and you can’t really be upset to lose out to Stadtlander, can you?

All in all, a magical meal.  The Everyman wanted to give the man a thumbs up (a la Cowbell) but we weren’t 100% sure which one the chef/owner was.  We both decided that were we to ever become independently wealthy we’d have to buy the place, or transport it to our basement and have this guy just cook for us all the time.  I gained a whole new level of respect for the chef when I noticed on the way out that not only are they plating on a tiny sliver of counter space right in the main walkway, but they also cook on an old residential 4 burner electric stove.  Imagine that!  They were so poor and devoted to getting this place off the ground that they don’t even have a real stove.  I love this place that much more now.  You can feel the utter passion and drive that the owner must have had to get this place open and off the ground just by looking around.  I still won’t use the bathrooms there though; a girl’s got to have limits you know!

The Foodie’s Cheater Black Hoof Cabbage Soup

1 head of cabbage, shredded

bacon drippings

4 slices bacon

chicken or beef stock to cover

1 tbsp cream

salt

Saute the cabbage in the bacon drippings in a pot over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until volume has reduced slightly and cabbage becomes translucent.  Next, add stock to cover and add the 4 slices of bacon to the pot.  Allow this to simmer on medium for about 45 minutes to an hour.  After 45 minutes, check the cabbage to see if it is completely soft.  If it is, puree the mixture with a stick blender and add your tablespoon (or splash) of cream.  Salt vigorously to properly experience The Black Hoof’s version.  Serve immediately or freeze for lunches.

Makes 4 to 6 portions.

Until next time…

It was probably about 6 months ago I noticed that Grace restaurant had opened down the street from our house.  I was intrigued to go for a visit when I read about it on Sweetspot, but the Everyman wasn’t too keen at the time because their menu seemed devoid of things he would enjoy.  So, as I often do, I bided my time and waited for the menu to change enough to something he would fancy.

Flash forward 6 months later, and this is where he decided to take me for my “congratulations on the first week of your new job” dinner.  Grace is a beautiful, warm, homey space, covered with pictures of the owner’s grandmother (who it happens to be named after).  It was also quite a popular place on a Friday night, with quick and friendly service.  Based on the ambiance of the room alone I would be likely to return.  It gave off an overwhelming feeling of comfort.  If I’d been any more comfortable, I’d have to be wearing bunny slippers and my bathrobe I think.

But, on to the reason we’re all here; the food. First off, even though the menu offerings are outstanding, I have to knock the actual menu.  It has no discernible order, and actually makes trying to order a meal quite difficult.  I mean, if the waitress actually has to explain to you where certain items are meant as appetizers and others as mains, then your menu is obviously not well laid out.  Seriously.  It shouldn’t take 5 minutes to explain the mechanics of a menu (especially when none of that time is being used to discuss the actual food).  Anyhow, I’ll stop ranting now.  The menu design is bad.  Enough said.

The food more than makes up for it though.  I chose to order the pork charcuterie of the day, which turned out to be a porcini dusted pork belly on a parsnip puree.  It was absolutely outstanding.  I wished at the time that I knew more about cooking pork belly so that I could replicate that kind of texture and unctuousness at home.  The Everyman had ordered a French onion soup with Gruyere crostini, but being that he doesn’t eat a great deal of French onion soup (or seem to be much of a fan of it) he was a bit flummoxed by the overly hard crostini floating on his soup.  The flavors were definitely there, but -10 points for ease of use.

For mains the Everyman had a striploin with mushrooms, sunchoke and celeriac gratin, and some sauteed greens.  The Everyman was happy; if red meat or bacon are involved, he’s pretty easy to please.  I particularly enjoyed the bite of sunchoke and celeriac gratin that I stole off his plate while he wasn’t looking.  It reminded me of something similar we’d had at Eigensinn over the winter.  My main was a roasted pheasant with a chestnut and parsnip tart and some roasted brussels sprouts.  I’ll start out by saying that I’m not a fan of the parsnip at all, and yet, that night I enjoyed two dishes with parsnips components in them.  The tart was by far my favorite part of the plate, although the brussel sprouts were a close second.  As I’ve gotten older I find that I enjoy brussels sprouts more and more.  I even invented an amazing roasted brussels sprout and squash soup recently which I’ll post a recipe for at the end.  The pheasant was quite nice too, but there were sections of it that I wouldn’t eat because they were much too rare for my taste and frankly tasted weird.  But overall, the meal was entirely pleasant.

For my favorite part of any meal I had a dark chocolate souffle with a creme anglaise.  And it was delicious.  But I wouldn’t call it a souffle.  Not by a long shot.  It was completely liquid inside, which made it more like those stupid chocolate cakes with liquid centers that just won’t go away from the menus of Toronto restaurants.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a warm chocolate cake with a liquid center, but it’s so ubiquitous.  They’re just everywhere.  I wish more people would express a bit more creativity on their dessert menus.  Anyhow, this was a tasty dish, it just wasn’t what they perported to offer.  The Everyman ordered their homemade cookies and milk for dessert, which included homemade oreo, chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies all washed down with a nice tall glass of Harmony milk.  Kudos to them for specifically choosing the local organic milk that I so favor.  I strongly believe more people should support this sort of thing.  Anyhow, back to the cookies.  I got one bite of one cookie, and it was quite nice.  I wasn’t offered any more, so the Everyman must’ve REALLY liked those cookies, because he usually lets me try a little bit of everything.  They did smell really good though.

Overall, I think Grace makes a great neighbourhood hangout.  It’s probably a little more expensive than you’d want to spend for an average dinner out, but the food is far from average.  They source a lot of really great local product, and quite a bit of what they offer seems to be organic too, which obviously isn’t cheap.  I commend their efforts and think that things can only improve from here.  I look forward to visiting again, once the seasonal menu shifts again and there are more new offerings available.

Roasted Brussels Sprout and Squash Soup

1 lb brussels sprouts, washed and trimmed

1 small squash, (acorn or spaghetti work well) halved

Chicken broth

Honey

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

Lemon juice

In a roasting pan toss the brussels sprouts with olive oil to coat.  Drizzle with a tablespoon or two of honey and toss again.  Add the halved squash to the roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil.  Season everything well with salt and pepper.  Set in a 425* oven to roast for an hour to and hour and fifteen minutes, or until all are caramelized nicely.  Halfway through the roasting shake the pan to dislodge and shift the brussels sprouts.  Once roasted, remove from oven and let cool to room temperature.  Place all the brussels sprouts in a medium saucepan with the scooped out squash pulp.  Cover with chicken broth.  Cover with a lid and simmer on low for half an hour.  Check the consistency of the sprouts.  If they are yielding, and soft, puree the whole soup with a stick blender.  Add a squeeze of lemon juice to balance out the honey, and re-season as required.  Serve immediately.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Until next time…