Thursday, August 11 2011
Antiques and greasy breakfast go so well together. While we were in Kingston to see the Wolfe Island Music Festival, we visited friends, went to the antique market at Market Square, and dined at the Right Spot for a delicious greasy breakfast.
I ordered French toast and home fries (sorry no picture). Their home fries are thinly sliced medallions, griddle fried in bacon grease to a crisp golden brown perfection. My French toast was crispy and savoury (from bacon grease) on the outside, but soft and sweet, melt in my mouth on the inside.
The owners are a sweet couple that run the place (just the two of them). I will be sad if I ever come to Kingston and I see that they’ve retired and the place is closed down. I hope that there’s someone to carry on their delicious tradition of making the yummiest, cheapest, greasy breakfast in town.
*Right Spot, 171 Wellington St, Kingston, Ontario. 613.546.0767
Tuesday, August 9 2011
Going to cottages on non-weekend days is the best. Since everyone else is still working it feels like a real holiday and you get to avoid the regular summer cottage traffic.
The muffalletta sandwich is a super delicious, easy to make and take cottage or picnic food. This one is stuffed with an assortment of roasted veggies, grated fresh beets, a variety of olives, capers, salami, cheese, arugula, bacon and artichoke hearts.
Friday, July 29 2011
My mother celebrated her 65th birthday last month, and a week later retired. Together with a friend of my mothers, we threw a surprise retirement party. My mother is hard person to fool, but she was happily surprised, and enjoyed a delicious meal together with her friends.
This is such a cute sign made by the 81 year old husband of the surprise party planner.
These delicious snacks went great with our drinks. Japanese rice cracker bites, large fried rice crackers with sesame and shrimp flavour, and steamed salted fava beans.
The meal was delicious and was essentially part 2 of the Japanese/Korean bbq I hosted a little while back. We dined on kalbi short ribs and an assortment of other delicious home cooked Japanese dishes.
Wednesday, July 13 2011
One of our favourite things to do in the evening is to sit out back and watch our garden grown. It’s amazing to see the fruits of our labour blooming and growing so quickly. I love picking things fresh from the garden and incorporating them into a meal for that day.
Check out that little baby melon growing. So cute!
I love eating batter fried zucchini flowers. My favourite summer time savoury treat. I make a batter mixture of flour, water, garlic salt, pepper, and some grated cheese of whatever I have lying around. This time I threw in some of the herbs that I've been growing in the herb boxes in the backyard. Then I coated the flowers with the batter mixture, and pan fried them in olive oil on medium heat until golden brown and crispy.
Monday, June 27 2011
This weekend I had my ultimate Korean bbq dream come true. My friend Vern had suggested a Korean bbq themed backyard party at our place. Such a good idea!
I made Japanese gyoza dumplings of 3 varieties (chive, dill, & garlic scapes). I picked the herbs right from our garden to complement the ground pork, chopped cabbage, and crushed garlic gyoza mixture.
I gathered this year’s first home grown bouquet for a table centrepiece. I threw in some fresh mint, lavender, and even some little yellow blossoms that came from our bok choys (they’ve already shooted and started running hence the blossoms). So far I’m loving the early summer harvest of fresh flowers, & delicious herbs.
Here’s mine and Vern’s combined spread of a mixture of Japanese homemade tsukemono and Korean pickles and sides, plus the pan fried gyoza, fresh cold tofu with grated ginger, green onions, and soy sauce (super refreshing). The table was already ram-packed, and the bbq’d meat was still to come!
Vern brought Kalbi short ribs, that she marinated Korean style for 2 days. I put together Japanese yakitori chicken sticks, marinated over night in a reduced version of soy sauce, sugar, mirin, and sake. I saved the left over marinade to glaze on top while bbq’ing.
Fresh picked lettuce from the garden to wrap meat in, after dipping in sauces and adding kimchee or pickles.
Homegrown lettuce with samgyupsal (bbq'd pork belly), dipped in a savoury sesame oil sauce, with kimchee, and baby sugared dried anchovies.
Dessert black sesame ice-cream with garden fresh mint, strawberries and condensed milk.
Monday, June 20 2011
Recently I went to a Victorian tea bridal shower; a nice twist to what can sometimes predictably be a lengthy present opening, women only, sandwich munching bridal shower. Well there were sandwiches, and lots of women, but for some reason a tea party can make everything just seem so much more fun! It was a great occasion to don extravagant hats, pretty gloves, and other appropriate tea time attire.
Each guest brought a vintage tea cup and saucer, with a little story. At the end of the party the bride to be gets to take home an eclectic variety of tea cups and saucers that each have a unique story or memory.
Friday, June 17 2011
With the summer patio season here I’ve been finding myself regularly frequenting The Ship trying out their delicious menu eats (gator bites, fish tacos, northern exposure burger) and sampling some of their refreshing beers à la pint all in the comforts of their patio.
There was a short time when only the bar menu was offered on the patio, but with some recent pairing down of their menu you can now eat your burger, drink a pint or two and sit outside until your hearts content.
*The Ship, 23 Augusta St., Hamilton 905.528.0792
Monday, June 13 2011
While Steve was away I was so busy, and as a result I got really lazy when it came to cooking meals. We had already pre-ordered our food box from Plan B Organics, so when the food boxes kept coming in, I was completely overloaded with fresh beautiful organic greens. On top of all that my mother dropped off a full bag of homegrown mitsuba. I was compelled to not let all those spring/summer greens go to waste so I started to make some pretty cute 1 person 1-shot meals.
My first meal for-1 was a baby bok choy, garlic, ginger, and black bean, oyster sauce quick Chinese stir fry served on white rice. I even threw in some garlic scapes as a nice substitute for green onions.
I steamed mitsuba and added shoyu, and a little sugar, and garnished it with katsobushi (dried fish flakes). My mother while dropping off the mitsuba, also brought over another Japanese green, to which she cooked only the stems (I forget the name of this green) that’s what I have on top of the rice along with my favourite rice seasoning furikake.
Mitsuba is a Japanese herb known also as Japanese parsley or Cryptotaenia Japonica. The direct translation of mitsuba is 3 leaves, which is true because each stem does only produce 3 leaves. It is a nice refreshing herb with a little bitter taste, so balancing the flavour with a touch of sweetness is a good thing to do.
Monday, May 9 2011
Lush green grass, and budding trees, who could resist this lofty patch of greenery?
Steve and I picnicked at Dundurn Park this weekend. We packed up some fixings from the Hamilton Farmers’ Market, bundled up Steve’s grandma’s quilt, and headed out to enjoy the spring sun.
My latest favourite are these sparkling fermented teas from Ercilia’s Fine Food in the Hamilton market. They are refreshing, bubbly and a little special treat above and beyond your regular tea. I bet it’d be fantastic in the summer with fresh mint and some clinking ice in a glass.
I picked up the cheese from Sam’s Cheese and Meats. Usually my default cheese is the raspberry cheddar, but for this picnic I opted for a smoked aged cheddar. It went really well with the spicy fennel salami, roasted pepper, and greens from our Plan B organic food box.
Sunday, May 1 2011
During my short-cut walk home from downtown, I noticed from the back of James St. north, a tri-colour combo I adore; hot pink, baby baby blue, and bright yellow, perfect spring colours for Saturday’s sunny warm day.
It seemed fitting to end the sunny day with a colourful spread of roasted veggies on the BBQ. We sat in the backyard and chased the sun until it hid behind the rooftops.
