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Standardby Julie64 Comments

Yesterday was Food Day, and the world’s longest barbecue. I caught wind of it last week – too late to really organize anything – I pondered calling a few neighbours over for an impromptu dinner when it occurred to me that cooking a nice meal on the grill for the three of us is just as legit as pulling together a block party. So I thawed a couple of beautiful bison T-bone steaks from a friend’s brother’s farm, cooked up some tiny new potatoes (which were then drizzled with cold-pressed canola oil from Highwood Crossing – Canada’s EVOO), sauteed some chard, and tossed a salad of lettuce leaves plucked from the pots on my back porch (YES! I DIDN”T KILL THEM THIS YEAR!), roasted beets (from another friend’s brother’s farm) and crumbled Fairwinds Farm goat cheese, drizzled with honey-balsamic vinaigrette. The bison steaks were unbelievable – so worth a try – but remember that they are leaner than beef (although these came across not oneContinue reading

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Standardby Julie52 Comments

… and Beet and Purple Cabbage Slaw, Lentil & Barley Salad, Maple Squash Puree, Grilled Vegetables, Chocolate Chip Cookies and Mini Pavlova with Lemon Curd and Blackberries. That was last night, but we subsisted on leftovers today, in between a dozen or so dishwasher loads. Yesterday most of the ‘hood came over after our 6 hour community clean-up and the opening of a new park in Inglewood. By the time it was dinnertime we had all had too little sleep and too much sun, and the prime rib roast (left over from BT last week – yes, I froze it) had just gone onto the barbecue. (Remember my complete lack of time management skills?) The vat of sangria that arrived first did not help facilitate the dinner-making process, nor did prioritizing the simple syrup we needed to make mojitos with. (I know, you can use plain old sugar. We just wanted to be fancy about our mojito bar. Or more appropriately, the stickiest corner ofContinue reading

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Standardby Julie50 Comments

I spent a few hours last night staring at/fiddling with this website, and editing some photos for an article I was working on, and then went to bed at a little past eleven, thinking I was doing well. And then woke up in the middle of the night realizing I had neglected to mention dinner. Again. One definite bonus to working as a foodstylist is at the end of the day, you generally have dinner. Some (most) people just throw stuff out after shows, having been out on display or whatever, but as you know I hate to waste stuff. Especially food. So last night was grilled pork shoulder steaks a la Ron. I have only cooked shoulder blade in the slow cooker or braised it in the oven; I would never have thought to throw them on the grill. I assumed they would be too tough. They weren’t. You have to navigate the ripples of fat, unless you are the type to devour thatContinue reading

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Standardby Julie122 Comments

HIGH FIVE. Oh yeah. I got W to eat broccoli. And not only eat it – LOVE IT. One small step for W, one giant leap for motherkind. A few days ago I made a pot of pasta fazool (must have been for lunch) and W walked in, looked at it, and said: “what! I don’t eat vegetables!” and stomped outside. Five minutes later I could hear him out on the patio, back arched, yelling at the sky: “I need some SUGAR!!” Great. So I became determined to get him to eat broccoli. He’s fine with spinach, so long as it’s cooked and on pizza or mixed into meatballs or some such. Peas get snuck in if they’re mixed with rice, but mostly he tries to eat around them. It’s not the green he’s against per se – he loves pesto – it’s the vegetableness of things like asparagus and broccoli. He won’t touch raw veg like sugar snap peas or (god forbid) leafy greenContinue reading

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Standardby Julie46 Comments

Although I’m still digesting last night’s “dinner”, I had the foresight to pull a pork tenderloin out of the freezer this morning. I buy them in packs of several because they’re cheaper, and when I get home from the grocery store divide them into plastic bags, sometimes with a glug of barbecue sauce or honey mustard or hoisin from a jar, and pop it in the freezer. They thaw quickly due to their shape, and cook in 15 minutes on the grill. The corn salad came out of desperation to use up the 6 ears I bought on Friday – the novelty of chewing the corn off the cob has already lost its lustre for the season. (This tends to happen quickly around here, unless we’re at a cabin somewhere, in which case I could easily eat corn on the cob for breakfast lunch and dinner for weeks.) I still had some compound butter left in the fridge and so sliced the kernels off ofContinue reading

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Standardby Julie46 Comments

I’ve been working all week on an article about tea and its culinary possibilities, and it blows me away that it isn’t used more often in the kitchen. Lapsang souchong, for example, is a black tea that is roasted over a pine fire, turning it so smoky that you could marinate meat in it give it a smoky flavour without adding actual smoke. Because tea is acidic, it works well as a marinade anyway. Since this was experimental I didn’t do anything but marinate the pork in strong tea; 1 Tbsp. lapsang souchong leaves steeped in 1 cup boiling water, left to cool and then thrown in a baggie with a pork tenderloin overnight. (This would be a great way to freeze meat too – the tea would act as a sort of insulation against freezer burn while adding flavour.) I resisted the temptation to add barbecue sauce or anything other than a slick of oil to keep it from sticking to the grill andContinue reading

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Standardby Julie47 Comments

I can’t honestly believe it’s already day 210. I went for a late lunch out this afternoon, and thus was filled right up for dinner. Unfortunately W and M still needed to eat, but I picked up an Afghan flat bread that resembled a pizza crust at a Mediterranean market for $2, and it turned into an instant pizza. I almost didn’t want to cover up the fancy poke-holes in it. Honestly, the grill is the best place to cook a pizza. Closing it creates an oven environment, and the high direct heat is ideal for creating a crispy crust whether it’s fresh, frozen or just already baked, as was the case tonight. I only wish my first introduction had been with raw dough; I think most people fear trying it this way because they can’t believe the dough won’t fuse instantly to the grill. Trust me, it won’t. You just slap a rolled-out circle or oval of dough straight on the grill, flip itContinue reading

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Standardby Julie46 Comments

Who needs corn dogs when there’s this kind of meat on a stick? The question of what to make Mike for his birthday dinners for the rest of his life has officially been answered. I had an extra rack of Carmen Creek bison ribs I had rubbed down with dry rub at my cooking show at the Stampede this afternoon, but not cooked. After all, like beef or pork ribs they need a good couple hours of slow cooking to tenderize the meat and release it from the bone. So I brought them home and popped them in the oven at 275 F from 3:30 until 6, then pulled them out, painted them with barbecue sauce and threw them on the grill for a few minutes, just to finish them off and caramelize the outside goo. You could do the pre-cook in advance if you’re having a party – do them a day or two in advance, keep them in the fridge and then slapContinue reading

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Standardby Julie50 Comments

To start: Goat Cheese Gratin with Roasted Peppers, Tomatoes and Olives with some torn pita. Serendipitously I had to use up red peppers, chile peppers, goat cheese and olives. (OK, I cheated and bought some tomatoes.)While searching for new uses for my new found plethora of spinach, I stumbled upon this recipe for a salad with mangoes and candied pecans. Really it was just spinach, diced mango and pecans that had been caramelized in a skillet with 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 Tbsp. oil and 1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar. Please remember this: if you think pecans burn easily on the stovetop, pecans in bubbling sugar burn twice as fast. Don’t be as impatient as I am and end up with bitter burnt nuts. Do you know the street value of those things? The pecans are fab, by the way, and would be great on any salad or as a snack, although next time I’ll omit the oil and just do them in brown sugar and balsamic;Continue reading

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