Jazz Festival Open House

My sister was nice enough to host an open house for the Beaches Jazz Festival. When my parents lived there we could always make a fun night of it, as its better when you have a home base. This year my sister had an afternoon event, with everyone heading down in the evening. Unfortunately it rained quite hard in the afternoon, but luckily it cleared up for the evening portion.

Of course i offered to make a food contribution for the event - since it was a drop in there was no need to make anything too intricate, so i settled with some dips. I have a great and super easy seven layer dip that people like so i thought i would make that for sure, but for the second i wanted to do something i had never done before/.

A few weeks before my friend Melanie had done a hot crab dip that went over well, so i texted her and got the recipe. It was really easy and definitely a crowd pleaser! Its originally from Epicurious - Hot Crab Dip. I did of course make a few alernations - i used shallots instead of onions, and used reduce fat cream cheese, half sour cream/half mayo.

Seven layer ingredients

The layers:

Salsa
Re-fried Beans
tomatoes, onions and jalepnos
guacamole (okay this is a layer in itself)
sour cream
lettuce
cheese
I top it off with the left-over tomatoes and onions.

Wrapped and Ready to go

The spread (yeah that's a sushi boat)

Some of the desserts

Seafood Poached Eggs with Sweet Potaot Rostis

This was a kinda slapped together meal that turned out quite well. There were a couple of influences behind this meal - one was that i had some left over cooked scallops from the ...... of saturday night and i wanted to use them up. Earlier last week i bought some of that fake crab that is really Pollock - i think its a pretty good snack as its low in cals and has protein, so i often snack on it. I thought i would combine the two for either a seafood salad thing or something else.

When i was preparing the meal i remembered a lobster poached eggs dish i had in New York, and thought maybe i could do something along those lines. I thought instead of an english muffins (and mainly because i didn't have one) I would make the sweet potato rosti that i did for my New Years Day Brunch. Who can deny shredded and pan fried sweet potatoes????

I thought i would keep two elements sort of traditional, and i wilted some spinach, but added shallots and garlic. I also poached the egg - i used the silicone ones, since i was preparing so many elements at the same time and didn't need to be stressing about poaching eggs - but they do give them a very uniformed shape.

When contemplating a sauce i realized that i already had a whole lot going on in the dish as i had mixed the chopped scallops and "crab" with green onions, dijon, lemon juice and a little may to help bind it. This along with the sweet potatoes, spinach and the yolk of the egg would be enough, so i left it plain. I think i made the right choice.

Above:

Sunday Brunch
Shredded Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients

Winter Cottaging - Surf & Turf

Heading up north to cottages in the winter can be a lot of fun, as long as you have a good fireplace, good wine, good friends and most importantly good food. This weekend was Jarred and Victor's combined birthday, and what better way to celebrate it, but with a very decadent surf and turf meal up north. Heading up on early friday afternoon, we had discussed early that week to make surf & turf - of course all we did was talk, no one actually bought groceries.

We actually bought the crab and meat up near the cottage which was near Thunder Beach. The prices were really good, and i think inspired by that we went a little wild at the grocery store. The result was spectacular, and gut busting. I will officially be eating only salad for a week, if not i will be wearing pajama bottoms for the rest of the winter!!!

Victor was in charge of the meat. We had three different meats - some steaks, a couple fillets, and also a couple pork loins. He seasoned them, and had them out of the BBQ. I put the crab in bunches, wrapped in foil after letting them defrost in the sink, and heated them in the oven. I also made a clarified lemon-garlic butter for dipping. (i told you we were decadent). Unfortunately we did not really have the proper tools for eating the crab, and there was a lot of innovation, brute strength and a set of side cutters.

A few nice reds were drank with the meal, no real plan there. Mor topped off the evening with a flourless chocolate layer cake with cream-cheese icing and walnuts. It was addictive. (especially to Victor who had to have it taken away from him)

Above:

Crab in foil
Clarified butter
Cooked and ready to eat crab
Meat with spices
More meat

Monday & Tuesday Dinner - Tuna Cakes

I really love crab cakes, and have made them a few times on my own but the minute i see them on a menu i am a goner. Obviously crab is a bit decadent for a recessionary weekday meal, so i was flipping through this cookbook i picked up awhile ago called "Easy Everyday" and saw a recipe for "Easy Tuna Patties", it recommended tinned tuna and sweet potatoes - two of my favorites so i decided to give it a shot. They were pretty good.

First you peeled and diced the sweet potato, boiling it and mashing it, adding the tuna, chopped scallions, and an egg. Once you made the patties you dredged them in cornmeal. I'm not a huge cornmeal fan, but i have this huge bag from some thing i made once, so i busted that out. I think i might try next time to do it with panko breadcrumbs, i love their texture and i think that it would really compliment the dish. I simply pan fried them until they were golden, since everything was pretty much cooked.

I liked this one, i made four patties out of half a sweet potato and a tin of low sodium tuna. I ate two for dinner monday, one for dinner tuesday and had one left over for wednesday lunch. They held together really well and reheated in the toaster oven like a dream. I might try this one again with a dipping sauce or a little more spice, but they were quite good - probably better on day two.

Above:

Tuesday's dinner
Simple ingredients
Fresh patties
Patties being dredged