Meal Starters

The Strategy

2010-02-09T18:22:00.000-08:00

Well I have to admit I have been pretty focused on a diet at the moment. I'm still eating awesome food. So I'm going to stray a little bit from my ingredient challenge and show you my strategy, which is still delicious .

This is spanish onion, Fresh fennel, pearl onions, and quinoa which were slow roasted in a crock pot. With minced ginger, sunflower peanut butter, hoisin sauce and cumin.

I added shredded cucumber and big diagonal slices of celery for a cool and crisp texture.

To add more salad freshness I added mayo ( half a teaspoon) and Cayenne pepper and the treat a teaspoon of a Sable & Rosenfeld curry.

This goes out to a Foodbuzz contact of mine:

This is what I was talking about when I mentioned a taco like salad.

Are you ready for prefect simplicity- romaine lettuce, cucumber, long slices of cheese firm mozzarella was used here.

The dressing is mayo and Sriracha hot sauce, cayenne pepper and cumin.

And the one ingredient that makes this prefect is a crispy tortilla like finish!

I also painted for the first time. Here is a sample, grapefruit:

What a wonderful pass time. This is like mediation for me, I mixed the colors as I pleased got a range of different hues and tones. Allowing the painting to become it's own. I'm working on lime as we speak :)

Chutney and Shrimp

2010-02-01T14:54:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned I was in Toronto the other weekend and bought some fabulously mysterious spices and ingredients that I have never really tried or used before:

Sumac- A middle eastern spice that is described as tart, I found there tomatoes notes immediately. Like exotic homemade ketchup chips.

Orange Blossom Water- Originally from Lebanon this distilled water contains the essential oils of the orange blossom. It is extremely fragrant and fresh smelling. I would suggest using this lightly as the strong flavor has the ability to over power.

Coconut Chutney- This was the hidden gem of the day- such complexity of sweet, spicy and savoury. The coconut, chilies and coriander make for an amazing combination.

Saffron- Is the centre threads of a small purple flower call a crocus. The saffro

n has a pungent, spicy flavour yet sweet to the noise.

This week I played around with Coconut Chutney and Orange blossom water (see the meal of the week for my little orange blossom experiment)

As soon as I tasted this chutney I thought of shrimp right away! Having just found brown vermicelli noodles I wanted to make an Asian pasta dish. I believe that pasta dishes are great fun to cook, whether you’re a beginner or a veteran almost everyone can make a mean pasta!

For myself pasta is like a beautiful blank slate you can create a multitude of combinations, flavors and textures. I find I sometimes abuse this flexibility and end up adding just a ton of vegetables, and spices making for a robust and complex dish. In my opinion once you start doing this flavor start to get cancelled out. It’s way better to pick a few spices and sauces that compliment each other. I think the prefect fusion is when you can taste the unique combination yet pull out every ingredient you have used. I feel as though this was achieved in my pasta dish

I picked only a couple vegetables- yellow pepper (they are my favorite I’m sure you have noticed this by now) Spanish onions and spinach.

I wanted to highlight the coconut chutney while keeping an Asian flare to this dish so I combined the chutney with margin, curry powered, and coriander.

This dish had wonderful flavor everything combined beautifully! You could easily pull each flavor. Once the chutney was cooked the sweet coconut flavor subsided and the zesty spice was highlighted. I highly recommend brown vermicelli noodles great texture I find they don’t get as mushy as the white noodles. Overall a very successful dish :)

Learning how to KISS ( Keep it simple stoooopid) with the Physalis

2010-01-21T18:34:00.000-08:00

The physalis also known as a ground cherry or cape gooseberry was a challenging ingredient to work with. I only tried one savory recipe and it kind of fell flat. I thought the dressing would be fantastic- I combined the physalis in a roasted red pepper dressing, adding cayenne pepper for some punch and pulled out some citrus flavors by adding fresh orange juice.

I grilled onions, asparagus, chicken and more physalis together and added this to mixed greens. I found once I cooked the physalis it lost it punch. I went wrong in one of two places I think I complicated my efforts with too many ingredients- I would take away the grilled ingredients next time and perhaps just stick to the dressing over the mixed greens. Next time I won’t grill the physalis either, this bad boy is complex on it’s own the preparation should have been simplified.

One a brighter note I was much more successful with the physalis as a wine spritzer ingredient. I used a sauvignon blanc, with my favorite drink Perrier sparking water, I then roughly chopped the some physalis and juiced the rest. This was sooo refreshing, you really taste the unique fruit juices and it blended with the wine perfectly I loved the physalis seeds in the mixture as well- where’s the sunshine and a pool!

Going back to the savory direction for the physalis…..any ideas out there? Maybe feed back on what I did or what you would have done??

Stay toon for the wild spices and ingredients that I bought in Toronto the other day!

Cozy Breakfast

2010-01-16T08:15:00.000-08:00

This creation is definitely abstract but you would not believe the contemporary flow of this warm cozy little breakfast.

My opinion is that a persimmon tastes like it’s been baked already, it’s naturally gooey and there is hints of cinnamon and other fall spices so my knee jerk reaction was to bake it and pull out these delightful flavours.

I sliced the persimmon thinly and added a little sugar and cinnamon. I then baked it for 10 minutes. I recently discovered sunflower peanut butter it’s all natural and AMAZING! I think any PB would have worked here but I would recommend using natural because the persimmon mixture is sweet already. Once the PB baked this combination was amazinnnnng – Very mellow yet the peanut butter added a thick richness.

I wanted to keep it simple after this so I toasted a bagel and drizzled honey ( tip warm the honey in microwave for 13 seconds this makes for a beautiful drizzle) Then I was able to dip away!

I wanted to eat this by a fireplace with a warm cup of a tea and knit some socks :)

I have given you a hint to my next ingredient in the picture…. I have never seen a physalis before. I can only describe it as a small orange like grape with the seeds of a kiwi…magical I know!! I want to take this little guy down the savory road….

This was great fun I’m quiet pleased with both results here. Are these item that you think you would try? Is my vision way too out there? I’m thinking I would love to explore with about 10 crazy ingredients that I have never used before. Being from Canada I am going shopping in Kensington Market on the weekend and I’m definitely looking forward to picking up some crazy goodies to play around with.

As I mentioned in my first post I want my blog to be about those reading it and sure I’m literally talking to myself right now BUT when I get followers I want my posts to help people or inspire them I want to challenge them and hear feedback.

Once I’m done expressing my creativity with the exotics ( yes I think celery root is exotic in the rugged kind of way …sure) I want to tackle real life food problems. Are you on diet and need ideas? Are you bored of meat and potatoes? Do you only have 3 ingredients in your fridge? Let me what we can get started ( Meal Starters pun bloggers can do that right?)

The Celery root baked not fried

2010-01-16T07:55:00.000-08:00

Overall the celery root challenge was quiet entertaining. Literally never trying this vegetable before I was delighted by it’s fresh clean celery taste.

My inspiration for this recipe was essentially a crab cake, as mentioned I was aiming for something crispy so I just went for it.

To start I steamed the celery root and then roughly blended them to get a diced texture. I added zucchini, chili peppers, shallots, green olives and tomatoes. From here I added canned crabmeat Dijon mustard and mayo. To bind everything together I used a couple eggs and flax seed (this is optional but so very healthy for you).

Made nice sized patties and baked them for about 15 minutes on a low temperature.

But seriously let’s talk about flavor and texture. The olives were accidentally my favorite part, the patty had that hit of pungent flavor which worked well with the subtle crab and celery root flavors. If you like spicy I would suggest using more hot peppers as well.

As far as texture the outside was prefect crispy yet the entire patty was moist, that was the largest benefit to using the celery root. Although the right crisp was not obtained easily, I fried the first batch in a frying pan. The frying method did not bind everything and caused the patty to be over cooked. It was baking them that really helped to nail my vision.

Naturally this is a perfectly well balanced meal we have veg, protein, oils ( mayo yes mayo is like olive oil healthy and necessary).

Making a large batch of these would be helpful for on the go meals or work lunches. Once you have backed them all you have to do is reheat. I think overall celery root can be used as a fabulous substitute for potatoes. Of course that is quiet a statement to make….further investigation required!

Ingredient Challenge...

2010-01-09T11:55:00.000-08:00

I’m not very familiar with the celery root. I’m going to play around with it a little bit. Perhaps some kind of soup?? I would love to make it crispy in some way?!?! Any thoughts? I’ll post any worthy results.

The permission is a fascinating fruit I must do something with its jelly like texture and warm flavors of autumn spices…but what will come of this?? Cooked? Puree? I see something sticky?!?

Culinary Enigma ??

2010-01-09T11:26:00.000-08:00

Well hello and welcome to Meal Starters! I wasn’t planning on doing a blog I usually like to beat to my own drum and blogs are pretty everyday if you ask me BUT I am reorganizing my entrepreneurial efforts to focus on food. I’m not at all sure what form this will take. All I know is that every time I have a major shift or life realization my passion for cooking and food blankly stares at me and says….what about now?

So here I am thinking it’s time to just start talking about food, I’m ready to share my ideas, and thoughts more importantly hear what others have to say. I think this will help to develop my next business idea. I’m not at all a chef but can guarantee that my unique take on food will provide inspiration to professionals at all levels- Not to mention dieters, families, stoners (very passionate eaters right??), dinner party friends etc.

It’s my intention to toss ideas around and see how others react so please compliment me, challenge me, help me, call me out!! Who knows what will come of this if nothing else I hope I make you hungry J