Vegetarian in Waterloo

While i was in Waterloo at a conference, sick of conference food a friend of mine who used to go to UW took me to this vegetarian place near campus. I was pretty excited, and it was low key and tasty! I had the pad thai - which was super tasty, very tangy, with mock beef - something i hadn't had in years.

The menu
Basic
Spring rolls - they were good, but i was a little disappointed the sauce in packets.

Mushroom Congee
My friend ordered the black bean eggplant - it was sooo good!

Sushi in Markham

This saturday we had a an unofficial field trip to Markham - lead by my school friend Natasha. We did Pacific Mall and historic Unionville - ending our trip with all you can eat sushi. As my second round at all you can eat, i'm not the greatest judge. Things came out kinda irregularly, but everything we ate was very good.

Here are a few of the highlights - we also had sushi and sushi pizza - but these were the most memorable. We ended the meal with green tea ice cream and fried bananas (i just had the banana)

Steak - this was actually really nice.

Sushi lights at night

Bi-lingual

Some chicken dish i didn't try

Eel pancake

(limit one per table)

Miso eggplant - this was so tender we had two

Soba noodles in a light broth

Steak and Eggplant

It really wouldn't be a trip to the cottage if i didn't eat red meat. We hadn't picked anything up in advance, but the grocery store had a couple of nice tenderloins that looked like the good basis of a meal.

I let them get to room temperature, rubbed them with olive oil and my special meat rub that i make. (pretty much every spice at the cottage)

I also made this awesome eggplant recipe that my mother does. Its great for vegetarians, its done on the bbq and makes a great healthy side. You simply slice eggplant, lightly oil and bbq both sides. When you're meal is almost ready but back on the grill, add a slice of tomato (ideally one the same side as the eggplant, a couple rings of red onion and top with a dollop of goat cheese. (again, try to make the amount sort of match the size of the eggplant).

Here is everything on the grill
(in the packet is small potatoes)

The sides

Cottage Dinner with Seafood

My apologies, i've been super busy doing a summer stats class, so i have been cooking and photographing, but i just haven't really been posting. I'm going to put up a couple with minimal text and will try and write a few entries as soon as i have a minute to breathe!

Grilled some veggies and ended up blending them for a roasted veggie dip which was nothing special.

Got this shrimp recipe out of the Sunday NY Times and it is amazing. You make a sauce out of butter and Sarachi, and boil the shrimp - shells on - then toss them with the sauce and some diced jalepeno and corriander. Kinda like my popcorn guilty pleasure.

Scallops in a white wine, butter and garlic sauce

Potatoes that i boiled then tossed in a shallot butter.

Baked Ricotta and Roasted Vegetable Penne

This was actually a really rogue meal for me to make - i really don't make that much pasta, and this was probably one of the first times i baked the pasta. As usual i didn't have a plan for this meal - i had bought the ingredients in a rushed frenzy, and only had a vague idea of what i was going to make. This one turned out pretty good, but it did feature three types of cheese, so how bad could it have been!

A lot of the inspiration for this meal was actually due to a birthday gift i got from my friend Joanna. She gave a a moleskin recipe organizer - my recipes are one-eight written, cut out, printed, random notes on paper i can barely read - so i've been going through these. I think my veggie choices; garlic, eggplant and red pepper were inspired from a few different recipes i saw while going through my notes picking ones to preserve in the new book.

My Plate

(served it with some bruschetta)

Pretty simple ingredients - and a lot of PC product

I lightly tossed the veggies in olive oil and roasted them,

then cut them into bite size pieces

I mixed light ricotta with some chopped arugula

I mixed the pasta, sauce, roasted veggies and ricotta together.

I actually made the tomato sauce with a can of diced tomatoes, roasted

garlic, red peppers and some spices. Pretty simple and you could

easily use jarred sauce.

I simply put everything in a glass casserole dish, then i topped

with shredded mozzarella and Parmesan. I covered it with foil and baked it until

it was warmed through, removed the foil and broiled it until the top was melted

and a little brown.

Grilled Veggies for Easter Weekend

I have recently been terrible about updating and cooking - don't know what has gotten into me, but this long weekend i went out of town, and did a bunch of cooking and picture taking, so i'll have a ton of material for the next few weeks. On Good Friday, i went up to Mike's cottage and Jarred and i cooked an epic dinner - which there are so many things i realized that i would actually have to write a couple different blogs about since there were so many things and so many pictures.

I'm starting out with the grilled veggies we did for the dinner. When i was driving up on Friday, none of the grocery stores were open, and since i hadn't really been cooking, i actually didn't have that much to bring up - luckily there were a few fruit markets open on Bloor West so i picked up a ton of veggies for the meal. Now as i may have mentioned in another post, these boys are pretty serious about their meat so i always like to add some veggies, plus it gives me something to eat.

For the grilled veggies i marinated huge portabello mushrooms, a couple eggplants and of course some asparagus. We cooked them ahead of time, since the rest of the meal actually required the grill, and served them at room temperature. I dressed the eggplant and mushrooms with a light balsamic dressing before we served them, and dusted the asparagus with Parmesan.


Above:

The veggies on the table (with my favorite wine)
Portabellos ready for the grill
Ingredients
Plate of veggies
Jarred doing the eggplant

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!

Non-meat meals for meatlovers

Growing up eating little or no meat, i've never really had the idea that meat makes a meal, but i forget for some people it is the focus on the meal, and everything else is just window dressing. Cooking for a crowd can present this challenge, especially when you have people (okay men) who don't think they could possibly get full from a non-meat meal. I have converted an number of people and made them believers, and Mike is one of my success stories.

On day two of our winter visit to Mike's cottage and after our massive surf & turf meal i thought it would be nice to lighten up the menu a little. We were so preoccupied with the first meal, we had to run out to pick up some more groceries for the second meal. I was wheeling the buggy to the checkout when two of our party realized that there was no meat, they were worried, but i had my secret weapons - pasta and eggplant.

A lot of people claim to dislike eggplant, and i think that's just because they haven't had it made well. I actually didn't really have a plan to make everyone who was skeptical about a meatless meal happy, and Mike was offering to cook up some sausages on the side, but i prevailed.

I think one of the fundamental problems people have with eggplant is the texture. One of the things i've learned to do in order to make people more receptive to them, is either to use the small asian eggplants, or salt the eggplants. After cutting the eggplant into discs i place them in a colander, coat with salt and allow the eggplant to sweat for ten minutes or so. This tends to take the bitterness out of them. you simply wash them off afterwards and pat them dry.

I decided to make mini deconstructed eggplant Parmesan to go with the meal. I lightly covered the eggplant with with a breadcrumb and Parmesan breading, and baked them till golden and topped with with a oven roasted cherry tomato sauce i made and a bit of Parmesan.With the veggie pasta in a rose sauce and a salad even Mikey was happy and there were no sausages necessary!!!

Above:

My eggplants

Fresh out of the oven.