Week 26: A gift from Jamie

This week I am going to talk about a cooking class that Jamie gave me for being the best husband and father in the world! Actually since the gift was a cooking class she kind of gave the gift to herself;-) Jamie thought that i could use some inspiration since I am half way through the year and need to refocus my efforts for the next 6 months. She got me a cooking class at The Dirty Apron. There were so many options that i had a hard time choosing but in the end I settled on a seafood class. If you enjoy food and cooking I would highly recommend taking a class at The Dirty Apron. The Chef teaching us was excellent and very helpful and the rest of the staff were also great. The free flowing wine did not hurt either;-)

I am not going to go over the recipes here since I feel like that would be cheating or something like that. I will go over the menu and post the picture. We started the night by making Mussels Congolaise which are from Chambar (one of our fav restaurants in town). This dish has an excellent tomato coconut cream sauce that is perfect for dipping your bread.

For the second course we made maple seared scallops with a warm chorizo and kalamata olive ragout and a pea coulis. This dish surprised me because I do not like olives yet I ate all of the ragout. I am pretty sure it was because the chorizo was so delicious that it covered the yucky olives. I could have done with out the pea coulis it was too sweet and too pea-flavoured to be truly enjoyed. The maple seared scallops were amazing and so simple. Just let the scallops soak in a cm or so of maple syrup for 10 minutes and that is it. 

The final course we prepared was a pan roasted halibut on a bed of sauteed spinach and crushed fingerling potatoes with a charred tomato vinaigrette. There is really nothing more to say about this dish then it was superb!

The dessert course was prepared for us because we did not have the time to do it. It consisted of a cardamom, caramel poached pear with vanilla ice cream and a chocolate sauce. After they poached the pear they took out the core and seeds with a melon baller and piped the ice cream inside. In a word, divine.

Week 25: Garlic Scape Pesto

I have a quick confession to make about this week's post, I have tried to make garlic scape pesto before but have never had any success until now. Several years ago while Jamie and I were touring around the Okanagan we stopped by to see our friends Niki and Nick. While we were there they made some yummy garlic scape pesto. It was our first introduction to garlic scapes and since then we have bought them whenever they are at our local farmers market. The problem has been that every time I have tried to recreate the pesto it has flopped. The taste has usually been there but the texture is all wrong. So this past week I spent some time talking to the nice lady at the farmers market and she gave me some good advice on how to select the scapes, etc for pesto. 

Here is the recipe I used it is a garlic scape and almond pesto and it was delicious. 

10 garlic scapes, finely chopped

1/3 to 1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan (to taste and texture)

1/3 cup slivered almonds (I used whole almonds that I roughly chopped and toasted)

About 1/2 cup olive oil

Salt to taste

Prepare like any other pesto. Add everything to a processor and blend. 

Mark's thoughts: Finally! It tasted good and had the correct texture.

Jamie's thoughts: Delicious! Luca liked it too.

Before I go I want to give a quick shout out to Niki's farm Rootdown Organic they are in Pemberton and you can find them at the Farmers Market on Sundays in Kits.

Week 24: Tex-Mex potato salad

Last week the Vancouver Sun had several potato salad recipes that looked pretty good. Now for a lot of people potato salad is nothing new but I am personally NOT a fan of potato salad and I have never made one and have only eaten it on the odd occasion. The exception to this would be the super yummy octopus and potato salad we used to get in Italy which I hope to recreate this summer;-) 

So this week I made the Tex-Mex mixed mini potato salad. Here are the ingredients

1 1/2 pounds mixed mini potatoes
1/3 cup olive oil 
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons finely grated lime zest
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 teaspoons Tabasco sauce (I used Frank's Hot Sauce)
Salt to taste
3/4 cup fresh corn kernels
1/2 cup diced celery (I left this out, I am not a fan of celery in a salad)
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro 

Cut each potato lengthwise and quarter. Gently boil until just tender. Drain and cool to room temperature. 
Place the oil, cumin, garlic, chili powder, lime zest and juice, orange juice and hot sauce in a large bowl and whisk to combine. 
Add potatoes and the rest of the ingredients and toss to cover. 


Mark's thoughts: Not being a potato salad lover I was not sure about this but it turned out quite nice. Another good summer salad especially when my burlap sack potatoes are ready.


Jamie's thoughts: Nice change from regular potato.

I really enjoyed the colours in the salad and the freshly poured Black and Tan in the lower part of the image;-)

Week 23: Cioppino

The last few times I have been out to eat I have ordered soup. Now for most people this is a stupid statement but for me it is quite profound because I never order soup out. Actually I really do not eat a lot of soup so it is kind of surprising that I would order it. What I have found though is that I have been having some super yummy soups so I decided that I wanted to try recreating this cioppino I had in North Van. 

I found a nice recipe on the Food Network website and made a few changes along the way. 

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1 onion, chopped
3 large shallots, chopped
2 teaspoons salt
4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
3/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper flakes, plus more to taste
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 (28-oz) can diced tomatoes in juice
1 1/2 cups dry white wine (I did not have any wine so I left it out)
5 cups fish stock (I used veggie stock and it was fine)
1 bay leaf

Here is what they suggested for seafood
1 pound manila clams, scrubbed
1 pound mussels, scrubbed, debearded
1 pound uncooked large shrimp peeled and deveined
1 1/2 pounds assorted firm-fleshed fish fillets such as halibut or salmon, cut into 2-inch chunks

I used
1 dungeness crab
1 lobster
1 lb of fresh BC spot prawns
1/2 lb of new potatoes


The nice thing about this recipe is that it was simple enough to make any night of the week. Start by sauteing the the onion, fennel and shallots in a heavy sauce pan for about 10 mins. Add the garlic and pepper flakes and continue sauteing for approx 2 mins. Now add tomato paste, diced tomatoes, wine, stock and bay leaf. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until flavours blend about 30 mins. Now I added the crab and lobster and let them cook for about 8 min. Finally I added the spot prawns for the last 2 mins.

Mark's thoughts: A very nice, hearty soup. I overcooked the lobster tail a little but but the rest was just right. Next time I will throw the lobster tail in a little later.


Jamie's thoughts: Messy but tasty.

 

Week 22: Done with hiatus

I have not updated the blog in a month or so and in a lame attempt to not look lazy I will blame any of the following

1) Vacation
2 Stanley Cup Finals
3) Last month before returning to work
4) Nice weather

The last one is a joke since anyone living in Vancouver knows the weather has been crappy. 

We did go a little vacation to Maui and this post is about that trip. We had some nice meals while we were there but I want to write about "The Fish".

So Jayson and I went for a little fishing trip and within the first 20 minutes of setting the lines we had a fish on. Jayson took that fish and lucky for him because for the next 5 1/2 hours we did nothing but soak the gear. Jayson pulled in a nice short-billed spearfish which is a fairly rare catch off of Maui.

Jayson and the fish.

Now I know this blog is about cooking new things but since I had never had short-billed spearfish I decided to include it. To cook the fish I took the fresh filet and seasoned it with salt and pepper and a little olive oil then I dropped it right on the grill and it was amazing. The fish had a nice mild flavour and a wonderful texture (almost like chicken).

The filets waiting to be brought home.