Chef, Mother, Crazy Cheese Lover
No better way to ring in the New Year and clear out the cobwebs than by taking a plunge into the ice cold waters of Lake Banook just down the hill from my house. This is the first of many new 'plunges' that I will be taking this year. I will keep you all posted.
This is a very special Feisty Chef market round-up. This edition featured my haul from the city market during my recent visit in Turin, Italy. I managed to visit this world-class market a couple of times. It was exploding with incredible local and seasonal products from Piedmont. I will follow-up in the next few days with a video recipe inspired by this market round-up. Please stay tuned.
I have a number of favorite dishes on rotation in my house. Lamb tagine is definitely one of them! How good is this dish you ask? Well, my two year old boy, Phil - who happens to be the pickiest eater on the planet, gives it two big thumbs up.
Aside from being toddler approved, this dish is very easy and quite healthy. I usually serve it over brown rice or couscous.
I recently made this dish at the Select Nova Scotia "Meet Your Farmer" event in Dartmouth. I was fortunate enough to show people how to make this recipe while standing alongside my favourite lamb farmer in the province, Bill Wood of Wood 'n Hart Farm. During this event I received tons of requests to re-post the recipe. I also had some folks ask me if I could put together a video recipe as well. So folks, here it is, lamb tagine...the video.
If you're looking for the full recipe, I actually wrote about this dish in a post from March of 2010. This post can be found here:
In this week's round-up I'm in Cape Breton where I visited the Mabou Farmers' Market. This was a lovely Sunday market with a great vibe. We managed to pick up some interesting finds and had some great chats with a few of the vendors.
Summer's in full swing and the bounty of incredible local and seasonal products couldn't be better. In this week's Market Round-Up I share a description of my haul from the Dartmouth Farmers' Market and the Historic Brewery Market. I already can't wait for next Saturday!
As I had promised in my blog post last week and as per the video, here is my recipe for Strawberry Ice Cream.
Makes Approximately 2L
In a pot, add the strawberries and about 1 tbsp of the sugar. Bring to a boil and turn off.
In another pot, add the milk, 1/2C of the sugar and the vanilla bean. Bring to a simmer but not a boil. While this is happening, separate your eggs and whisk yolks with the sugar. Once the milk and cream has come to s simmer, slowly add a ladleful at a time to the egg mixture; constantly whisking so that they eggs do not cook. Add a few more until the egg mixture is tempered then pour back into the pot with the remaining milk and cream.
Slowly cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens and can coat the back of a spoon. Pour through a sieve to remove vanilla beans and any solid and mix with the cooked strawberry mixture.
Cool completely, preferably overnight in the fridge. To make the ice cream the next day, follow the manufacturers instructions on your ice cream machine.
We all have childhood memories; smells, tastes, textures. One particular food memory for me was when my maman would boil a ham. It sounds pretty simple, and it was, but what came out of this ham was pretty darn good. The boiling liquid would get saved for ham and pea soup, and after a few days of ham with beans or potato salad, we would take all the little bits and pieces leftover and make "jambon dans le petit moulin" which is basically ham passed through the grinder.
I still remember the first time my husband came to visit me at my parents' place and the look of wonder on his face when I pulled out an old school, hand cranked meat grinder and set it up at the end of the kitchen table. With ham scraps in hand, some celery, onion, mayo, relish and mustard, the magic began. The meat, onions and celery go through the meat grinder (followed by a wee bit of bread to clean it all out), mix with the other ingredients and savour the flavour of this yummy ham mix. To this day, it is a special treat to make and eat.
