Blue Christmas

Evan and I have been married for almost 2 months now. Time really flies by. We were just saying last night that December is already half way through and the next thing we know it’s going to be the New Year. This year I just can’t quite get into the Christmas season like every year before, despite my hard efforts to soak up any opportunity for Christmas cheer. This is traditionally my favourite time of the year. Family and friends get together, people are in cheery moods, and everything and everywhere is decorated with fancy lights, beautiful trees and fabulous ornaments.

Skype dates with my seester.

2012 has been by far one of the busiest and hardest working years in my whole existence. Longer hours at work, taking on a new role, planning a wedding and learning some hard lessons along the way about what kind of people I want in my life and the kind of person I want to be moving forward. Most people would shrug, roll their eyes at me and say, “hun, that’s life so deal with it.” And rightfully so, compared to a lot of people my life isn’t that hard and yes, I am very grateful for what I have. I have a wonderful and loving husband, a supportive family, great friendships and a fantastic job with a great company. I’ve seen many parts of the world most people will never see, experienced cultures I wasn’t even aware existed and met some amazing people along the way (just writing this makes me feel better…blogging as therapy anyone?). But something this year is missing. Maybe it’s because I’m missing my sister who lives in London and will be spending our second Christmas in a row apart. Maybe it’s the adjustment to not having some friends around us that have been such a big part of our lives in the past and now they are not. It’s just not the same this year and the Christmas season just doesn’t quite feel like Christmas so it has had me feeling a little blue.

Last week I had some surprise vacation days left so I had a full week off of work, in December. In the restaurant industry that is basically unheard of. I thought I would have a nice relaxing week to myself and the next thing I knew, I had something booked with people every single day. I was busier on my holidays than being at work! I got to spend some serious quality time with some serious quality people and tried my darndest to be happy and dandy and cheery. It’s Christmas time damnit!

I kicked it off with our famous annual Managers Christmas Dinner and Party for my work, always a good time. We sure know how to work hard and party harder. I followed that up with curing a hang over the best way I know how by getting tattooed by the now famous Joshua Johnson (check out his interview on Shaw: The Scene starting January 10^th. Check their website for details). After that I had a cooking date with my mama and we made ravioli. It was a bit of a role reversal, I was teaching my mom how to cook something! Crazy! We made butternut squash ravioli and mushroom and spinach raviolis. Omnomnom….I followed this same recipe for the pasta here and just swapped out the filling. Instead of making giant raviolis and using 2 sheets of pasta I made them out of one sheet and just folded the pasta over the filling and then cut it.

My beautiful mama hard at work.

The day after that I had a cooking date with my Gramma. A few things I have failed at in the past at cooking: mac n’ cheese (don’t ask about the lobster fiasco), dry roast (stringy dry meat pieces anyone?), and gravy (would you like to smother that delicious piece of meat with some flavourless and chunky gravy?). For our cooking date she taught me how to make Gramma’s dry pork roast with veggies and Gramma’s famous gravy. She gets asked at every dinner to make the gravy, no matter whose house it is. We seasoned the pork roast with some thyme, pineapple sage, paprika, salt and pepper and drizzled it with garlic oil and fired into a 375F oven for a couple of hours. Then we added some root veggies and covered it with foil and cooked it for another hour. To make the gravy she made a slurry with 1 tablespoon of flour and 1 tablespoon of water. We put the roasting pan on the stove top with some beef stock and brought it to a boil. We slowly added the slurry and whisked it until it was the right consistency. Don’t worry if you don’t need all of the slurry. Make sure you cook the gravy long enough that the flour taste is cooked out, and season with salt and pepper if necessary. My god was that pork roast juicy and delicious. That woman sure knows how to cook a comfort meal, plus teach me some more valuable life lessons throughout the day.

The whole week was filled in with making soup for an under the weather friend of mine, Christmas shopping with my mom, lunch date with my dad, snowboarding with my cousin and making Christmas crafts with some girlfriends. It was an amazing week off and I was fortunate enough to spend it with some amazing people. When I got back to work our restaurant had been transformed with lights, garland and a Christmas tree. How can you not be cheery at work when it looks so beautiful?

Beautiful day to go boarding with my cousin.

What a bunch of babes.

Are you naughty?

Or Nice?

Despite my hard efforts, that blue feeling keeps nagging at the back of my mind and keeps tugging at my heart. I just keep hearing in my head Porky Pig singing Blue Christmas over and over again (it w-w-w-w-on’t be the same w-w-w-w-w-ithout yoooooooouuuuuu….). I think what this season calls for is more crafts, more cooking and more get togethers. Yes, that sounds fabulous. And maybe some more cow bell and Christmas rum n’ nog won’t hurt either.

Bring it on Christmas, give me all you got.

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Ego Busting Dinner

I admit that I am a bag blogger. It’s been quite a while since my last post and only now am I sitting down to write a new one. It’s crunch time for the hubby to be and I for our fall wedding. We’re been hunting down cheap decor at dollar stores, finalizing our rentals and doing our invitations among other various wedding related activities. Who would have thought that planning a wedding is a lot of work. But enough excuses and on to the post!

Today I’m going to share with you a very humbling experience and I hope some of you learn from my mistakes. Last weekend Evan and I had a rare Saturday off together and we wanted to celebrate with lobster. I picked up some lobster base and figured I’d make Lobster Mac n’ Cheese. I saw something similar once on DDD’s (Diners, Drive-In’s and Dives on Food TV) so I figured, hey, I can do it too. When it finally came to making the mac n’ cheese I also figured that I don’t need a recipe. I don’t know why but I have this thing about using recipes. Mistake #1. Oh yah, and have I ever mentioned that mac n’ cheese is my cooking kryptonite? One time I made it and it completely seperated into cheese curds and oil. My friend Big D still loved it and I gladly packed up all of the left overs for him to take home.

D’Brickashaw vs. Lobster. Guess who won…this guy!

I started off my cheese sauce with cooking some bacon in my Dutch oven. Starts off pretty good right? I removed the bacon, and in the bacon fat I cooked down some onions and garlic and then added condensed milk. I just kept thinking about how great this was going to be and how I was now a mac n’ cheese master. The lobster was cooking away and getting all delicious. Since I have never used lobster base before I decided to go with what I saw on TV, because TV is always right, right? Mistake #2. I should have found at least 1 recipe to reference from or read a review on lobster base. It’s pretty much all salt with a little bit of lobster essence. Into the pot I decided to add the entire container of lobster base…yes…the whole container. I went into instant dehydration when I tasted it. The sauce tasted like pure salt! Ugh!

Instead of just starting a new sauce from scratch I thought that I could fix it. Mistake #3. I looked up what to do online and we added cream, milk, honey, sugar, tomato paste and even sour cream to try and mellow out the salt. I should have just made a new sauce and added a bit of the salty sauce to it for flavoring. We choked down a couple of bites of macaroni and then said screw it. I effed up dinner big time. Thank god Evan is really understanding and just kept saying that I can’t bat 100% every time and that in 3 years together I’ve only had to throw out this one dinner. Sure, not all of them have been winners but this is the first time we’ve actually thrown out dinner. And it’s really sad when it’s lobster man n’ cheese because it’s a really decadent and expensive dinner to waste.

Looks good right? WRONG!

Luckily I made some lobster gratines that we had as a starter so we weren’t completely deprived of lobster. We picked out all of the lobster pieces and I’m going to  mix them with plain mashed potatoes to make lobster meat pies in the near future. At least we can salvage the lobster.

Taken at night with poor lighting but this is the only picture I have of the only edible part of our dinner. This I can proudly say was awesome.

So learn from my mistakes! It’s ok to screw up as long as you learn from them. Plus I think my cooking ego was getting a bit big so it’s a good thing to be humbled every once in a while. As my parents always said growing up, there is always room for improvement.

Cheers

Staycation

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Tattoo

Today marks the first day of my staycation. What better way to start my holidays than with some tattoos, Singha beers, sunshine, and awesome friends. Plus their pack of pups are entertaining to hang out with and they make incredible tattoo buddies while you’re in the chair.

I was lured there last night with a text message offering suntanning, bevies and crepes with Nutella and fresh strawberries. How could I resist? Making the crepes was an adventure since neither of us had ever made them before. We made them in a team effort and they turned out great! I’m pretty sure the guys just inhaled theirs. We even got to fill our bellies for dinner with Tristen’s homemade Cajun chicken pasta which I will most definitely be trying to make in the near future.

Getting tattooed is fun enough for Evan and myself but when it turns into a great day of Thai beers, good food and great friends you can’t go wrong. What a great start to my staycation! Still 6 days left and they’re jam packed with more awesome. Can’t wait…Eeee!

Cheers!

Just another casual Wednesday night dinner. Riiiiiiight…

Tags

adobo, Banana, Filipino, lumpia, pork belly

For those of you who don’t know me, I come from a multi-cultural family. My mom is Canadian (aka: Euro-mix) and my dad is Filipino. I grew up eating a lot of different cuisine and I was also taught to try a food before saying I don’t like it. Dinners in our home would be adobo, pencit, tinola, lumpia…and the list goes on. Most dishes are served with rice or noodles and they feature salty, bitter or sour flavors balanced perfectly with all of the ingredients. The dish I get the most excited for is lechon, a slow roasted suckling pig. Crispy skin and lots of pork belly to snatch up. My mouth is watering as I write this. If you haven’t tried it then you definitely should!

Lumpia.

My lovely hubby to be recorded No Reservations for me last night while I was at work. He thought I’d want to see the Philippines episode and he was right. It really made me miss my dad and his amazing cooking, some things you just can’t take with you when you leave the nest. It inspired me to do a Filipino dinner for the two of us. It would have my own little spin on it of course and since I’m a Canadian Filipina I thought it was fitting if it’s not exact to tradition. Gotta represent ya know?

I settled on a menu of pork belly adobo, lumpia and dessert lumpia (I can never remember what it’s called but my dad used to make them all the time when I lived at home). Brown sugar and plantain (large starchy banana) wrapped in a lumpia wrapper and deep fried. Yum. You can find all of the ingredients at your local Asian supermarket like T&T. I like the variety of different Asian foods they offer and there is one about 4 minutes from our home so it’s very convenient.

Here is an example shopping list that you will need for this dinner.

2 lbs pork belly with ribs
1 lb ground pork
1 white onion
2 heads of garlic
2 green onion stalks
chunk of ginger
1 1/2 cups soy sauce
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
1 small carrot
2 limes
1 plantaine
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 package small lumpia/spring roll wrappers
2 eggs
Chili flakes

First thing is to heat your oven to 375F. Line a large baking dish with tin foil and put a wire cooling rack on top. Place the pork belly rib side down on top of the rack and season with a little bit of salt and pepper. Pour over top the juice of 2 limes, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 tablespoons maple syrup, minced garlic, sliced ginger (1/2 of the chunk) and chili flakes. Tightly cover with tin foil then roast for about 1 1/2 – 2 hours. Remove the tin foil at the end and continue to roast for another 30-45 minutes or until the top is brown and the meat is fork tender. You might have to place it in another pan if the liquid dried up to prevent any burned flavor.

While that’s going you can make your fillings for the lumpia. In a large bowl mix finely sliced green onion, shredded carrot, minced garlic, minced ginger and 1 lb ground pork. In another bowl mix diced plantain, 3 tablespoons brown sugar and 3 tablespoons peanut butter. You can also make your dipping sauce for the pork lumpia. In a small bowl mix 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup vinegar, julienne ginger, minced garlic, a couple drops of sesame oil and chili flakes. The longer it has to sit together the better it will taste.

Crazy dipping sauce. Warning: WILL cause garlic breath. It's worth it though, trust me!

Get yourself organized and make a rolling station: bowl with the fillings, 1 large plate for the finished lumpia, 1 large plate to roll them on, 1 small plate for the wrappers (keep them wrapped in a damp paper towel to keep them pliable) and a bowl with 2 beaten eggs.

To make the lumpia, place 1 wrapper on the small plate in a diamond shape. Place a heaping tablespoon of filling about 2/3 of the way down the wrapper. Form it into a cylinder shape then wrap the bottom corner of the wrapper over the filling and use it to form the filling a bit more. Roll the filling up until it’s all covered by the wrapper. Using your finger, wet the remaining corner of the wrapper with the eggs, then fold one side down and pull the corner towards the center. Repeat on the other side and then finish the roll. You should have a neat and compact lumpia roll! Well, maybe not the first time but by the end of them they will look perfect.

Just follow the steps and you'll get the hang of it.

Now is a good time to get your rice and adobo sauce going. These will both take about 30 minutes to cook. Evan once asked me what my family’s secret was to making perfect rice every time. When I told him we used a rice maker he was shocked. He thought we had some sort of family secret passed down from the Philippines.

Next put 1 cup of soy sauce, 1 cup vinegar, slices of ginger (the rest of the chunk), minced garlic, 2 bay leaves, and diced onion in a large pan. Bring to a boil then reduce to medium and let the sauce reduce a bit. I finished the pork belly in the sauce but you can just pour it over top on a serving platter if you want.

Pork belly. My absolute number one guilty pleasure.

While the sauce is going…(a lot of steps I know but trust me, this will be worth it!)…break out your deep fryer if you have one, and if not just use a large pot (or Dutch oven). Heat 1 1/2 inches of canola oil on medium. Check with a wooden spoon to see if the oil is hot enough by putting the end right on the bottom of the pot. If bubbles rise around the wooden spoon then the oil is hot enough to fry. Gently place the lumpia in the oil and fry for about 8-10 minutes or until cooked through and golden brown on the outside. When they are done let them sit on paper towel to soak up any excess oil. Repeat with the rest of the lumpia and dessert lumpia.

I really need to ask my dad what this is called again!

If you can time everything right it should all be ready around the same time. It’s a lot of work but you can really taste the love that goes into it. I always know if Evan likes it when he tells me that this is why he’s going to marry me. I’ll have to make Filipino dinner for my mom and dad soon and see what the expert thinks of it with my own twist on tradition.

Cheers

Tattoo Party

Tags

Blueberry, Gramma, Mango, Mango Kitty, Pineapple Sage, Tattoo, Walnut

One of my favourite things to do is to piss of my mama and Gramma by getting tattooed. They can ask me all they want “when is the madness going to stop?!” but to me it’s not madness, it’s art. It tells a story of who I am and where I’ve been. And as long as there is prime real estate available on me, it’s fair game. Lots of people tell me that one day I’ll regret them but I’m not too sure if I agree with them. Sure it may happen that I’ll regret them but I’ll never forget the story that they tell. And when I get to that age where apparently you regret anything you did when you were “young and stupid” everyone around me will be tattied up anyway so who’s to judge? And when is that age anyway? This time around I thought it was a good time to pay respect to my lovely Gramma and to my favourite fruit. I added pineapple sage (I’ve been growing it with my Gramma since I  was a teenager), my Gramma’s handwritting, and a mango with Mango kitty’s nose freckles on it.

The last time we had a tattoo party there were four of us who got inked. Our artists amazing wife made us homemade sliders, cheesecake bites and veggie dips. They were awesome. This time around I was the only one getting tattooed but one of my girlfriends tagged along and there was a house full of people so I didn’t want to show up empty handed. I came up with a blueberry and walnut muffin topped with oats to bring for the show.

Blueberry Walnut Muffins

12 muffins

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter softened
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups blueberries
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
About ½ cup oats

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl combine the flours, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl cream the butter with the sugar. Add the almond extract and the eggs one at a time. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and mix just until it’s moistened. Add the blueberries and walnuts and fold into the mixture. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners. Divide the batter into the muffin pan and top each one with a little bit of oats and a walnut. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Test the inside with a toothpick, if it comes out clean then it’s done.

From batter to muffin. Yum!

I came with 10 and when I left there was only 2 remaining, I have to admit as well, they were pretty tasty. I’m totally in love with my new addition, it is a perfect picture for where my life story is at right now.

Cheers

A girl and her Dutch oven. A love story.

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Dutch Oven

Many of you may have noticed that in most of my posts I am using my big blue Dutch oven. Maybe you have also noticed that I use it a lot. Like, in almost every post… including baking. Some of you may laugh every time you hear the words “Dutch oven” but it is more than a fart joke. Yes I like a potty joke like most of you but not when it comes to my Big Blue. She demands respect! This Christmas past, Evan’s step sister asked us what we wanted for Christmas. When I told her we wanted a Dutch oven I believe her reaction was, “what the hell is a Dutch oven?”.

A Dutch oven is a large heavy cast iron pot with a lid. This allows you to use it on the stove top as well as the oven. It conducts and holds heat really well, ideal for multiple cooking methods like frying, roasting, braising, boiling, and even baking. If you could only have 1 cooking vessel then you should have a Dutch oven. Seriously, you can do anything in it! I think it inspires me to want to try out even more recipes and techniques just to use it. They can get quite expensive depending on the size and the brand. Basically as long as it’s made of cast iron all the way through the pot as well as the lid and you keep it properly seasoned then it will work. Mine is from Ikea (because Swedes do it better right?) and I love it. My favourite part is the colour, hence the name Big Blue.

You can see me taking a picture of her.

You have to take care of a Dutch oven, get to know it, whisper sweet nothings to it and rub it down with oil. Before you even use it you should wipe some canola oil over the entire inside of the pot and lid. Never EVER use soap when cleaning it, just use a dish cloth and some warm water. Re-season with oil as necessary. When I lived at home my dads favourite cooking vessel was his wok. I don’t know if he ever named it but I’ll have to ask him. After we washed it we had to season it with oil as well, I guess he was preparing me to take care of my Dutch oven. You can see the history and care instructions for a Dutch oven here.

If I ever have a spin-off blog, it will be about my Big Blue. My friend Christine (another mention…woohoo!) encouraged me to write a post just about my Dutch oven to clarify my love affair. Future recipes using it are going to keep on coming so I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I’d love to hear what you can do in your own Dutch oven. If you are unfamiliar with it, just have a look at these past posts and see for yourself how versatile it is. What a great gift idea for someone who’s finally leaving the nest, graduating, turning another year older or getting hitched. Heck, you don’t even need a special occasion just treat yourself and go get one!

Cheers!