Spicy Mustard Cream Sauce

Recently on a friday night i had my friend Adam over for dinner in exchange for him helping me retrieve photos and files from my old laptop that had died. Since i think i've only cooked once or twice for him i was able to use some of my old favorites - caesar salad and bruschetta. I was going to be adventuresome, but i ended up making pasta, which is kinda comforting on a friday night.





I picked up a great baquette from The Junction Fromagarie - they stock Thuet bread and its right downstairs so its a great option when i want something fresh and amazing. I used the bread not only for the bruschetta, but also for the croutons- there is something about warm croutons in a caesar salad that i love!




For the veggies this was a little bit of a whatever was in the fridge kinda pasta dish - which i think is fine. This one had asparagus, cremini mushrooms, carrots, shallots and garlic.

I was talking to a friend from school who is from Guyana, and mentioning that i like hot peppers, so she brought me these ones to try. I thought that the pasta might be a great place - spicy cream sauces have a spot in my heart. Adam isn't the biggest fan of spice, so i had to add this as a subtle heat. Not sure what these little numbers are called, but they have some heat!

I did a mustard cream sauce - using some of the fancy Whiskey mustard that my parents brought back from England. It was grainy and had an excellent flavour. I also added some arugula and Parmesan that i had in the fridge, the arugula to add a little colour, and well Parmesan... it was a cream sauce!

Zucchini Pasta and facing your fears

One of the gentlemen i work with has a zucchini problem, as in every year he has a ton of zucchini. I personally love zucchini and add it to a lot of dishes for extra veg, that or grill it for sandwiches. The man who gave it to me makes a zucchini caserole, but i thought i would be a little more adventuresome.


A year or two ago i made an eggplant "pasta" that was featured by Alton Brown. The reason the pasta was in quotes is because instead of noodles you used thinly sliced eggplant instead of noodles. I really liked this recipe, so i thought i would try it with the zucchini.

What also made this recipe a little different was that i would have to use my feared mandolin. I have always been quite intimidated by this device, only using it a couple of times. The first time i made this dish i did it by hand, but i decided that this time i was going to be braver and try it out.

Turned out fine - i have all my fingers and skin, and it made a really small julienne cuts. I actually would have used a larger blade for this meal as i don't think it absorbed the sauce as well as my hand-cut pasta - but that could have just been the eggplant.

First you saute some garlic and red chili peppers in oilve oil, then adding the zucchini, toasing to coat, then a couple seeded tomatoes, heating those through. You then add cream and parmesan, letting the sauce thicken.
I served mine with a few old favorites - caesar salad and bruschetta.

Hot Water and Steak Dinner

Cottages are great fun, but they are also a lot of work, particularly when you're opening them. This year we got a surprise that the hot water tank was kaput - hence forcing my family to install a new one. On a rainy and cold saturday the men-folk spent the afternoon under the cottage installing a new one.


Not to be embracing cheesy gender roles, but i thought it would be a great opportunity to cook a stellar meal - because honestly i would rather be in the kitchen than in a damp spider filled hole under the cottage. When i was in town at the grocery store (while the men-folk were digging a ditch) i picked up some pretty good filets, and then i spotted fiddleheads, which are a lovely spring treat that one cannot pass up the opportunity since they are only around so briefly.


I went a little veggie crazy, but i managed to use up the leftovers in the following breakfast and lunch.

The menu:

Bruschetta and mushroom tapanade on crostini

Fiddleheads (which i parboiled then sauteed)

Fried mushrooms

Grilled asparagus

Grilled endive

Steak filets with a home-made rub

Roasted mini potaotes with rosemary and garlic

Cherry pie with chocolate ice cream from the Kawartha Dairy

Bruschetta, mushrooms, goat cheese and crostini

freshly rised fiddleheads

My plate

making the bruschetta

Top: Cherry pie and ice cream

Staycation - Eggplant Parmesan

The staycation continues, and i truly embraced the staying in idea and had eric over for dinner and made a version of eggplant parmesan i had tried once, but that one was deepfried. Although it was delicious, it wasn't very healthy, so i thought i would try and bake it this time

The ingredients

Salting the eggplant

Some people find eggplant bitter - and depending on how you cook it that can be true. I find that the smaller eggplant i used or asian eggplant don't suffer from that, but another remedy of this is salting the eggplant. Simply cut the eggplant as you want to serve them, then toss with salt and allow to sit in the colander and this will "sweat" out the sour liquid. Allow to sit for 25 minutes and then rinse them off and pat dry.

Breading the eggplant

So i've mentioned before about breading things, and i've basically used the same technique to do these eggplants. For the breading i mixed panko crumbs with parmesan which is a nice twist. First i dredged them in flour, then the beaten egg and finally the panko-parmesan.

Eggplant Out of the Oven

The ingredients ready for assembly

I made a light tomato sauce by sauteing some garlic, then adding a can of chopped low sodium tomatoes, chili peppers and pepper. I cooked it until it had thickened. You could also use jarred sauce. I just didn't have any.

Assembled

After putting a little bit of the sauce on the bottom of the pan I stacked the ingredients - eggplant, basil, tomato then mozzarella filling the pan. After i filled the pan i added more parmesan, the rest of the tomato sauce and some diced mozzarella. I covered the pan with foil and baked it until it was warm in the centre, then removed the foil and allowed the cheese to melt and brown a little.

The Meal

I served this meal with caesar salad, in which i used polenta crutons, lightly dusted with parmesan and baked and bruschetta.

Bruschetta on multi grain baguette

Basil

I would like to note that i used the basil from my hydroponic grower!

Carbonara - Eric Moe, Guest Chef

In honour of Robbie Burns Day, my guest chef Eric offered to make me one of his favorite meals - Carbonara. I had never had this dish, and now that i was happily on the pork train, i thought what better a time. Apparently there is some controversy about how to make this dish, some puritans dispute the use of cream and the techniques. I had utter faith in my chef's version of the recipe, pure or not! This dish is also refereed to as the "coal miner's spaghetti" or "dinner"- and it was amazing!!!

The preparation and ingredients of the meal were fascinating in themselves, in some ways its sort of a bacon and eggs pasta. (i'm sure the puritans are cringing right now). Eric fried up the panchetta with onions and garlic, and made a mixture of eggs, cream, Parmesan and black pepper that gave the pasta the richness. Once the pasta was cooked and drained, he added it to the pork and onions, tossed it, then added the egg mixture. I understand this is where the controversy comes from - some people the cream is a sin, but Eric knows i like rich food. The egg mixture cooks a little from the heat and coats the pasta. It is served with a heap of Parmesan. Yum!!!!

It was really nice having someone cook me dinner, though i might have irritated my guest chef by shoving my camera in the food constantly, it was a great meal. The pictures aren't great, in part because of the speed of the cooking, my newness with the camera and lighting issues, but i hope it represents what a good meal it was. I thought since the pasta was quite rich i would make a couple lighter sides to balance the meal out. I purchased some buffalo mozzarella and made a Caprese salad along with some brushcetta. Of course we had a wine - i chose one of my VQA favorites - East Dell Black Cab. Its a Pinot Noir Cab blend that offset the richness of the dish.


Above:

Caprese Salad
Carbonara
Chopping up the pork
The ingredients
Bruschetta