Blueberry season has come in full swing, much to my enjoyment.
Yesterday, at the Covent Garden Farmer's Market, I bought a giant bag of delicious blueberries from Bluberry Hill Farm, which is located in Rodney. The bag had six cups of blueberries in it.
I probably could have finished the bag of blueberries on their own, but I decided to try to make blueberry pie. The recipe is from my housemate's Betty Crocker cookbook, so I won't post it here (copyright and all that fun stuff), but I will post photos.
Unfortunately, I did a poor job of sealing the pie so it was leaky. The flavour, however, turned out to be delicious. It would be perfect with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream (as a good many desserts are).
A very special thanks goes to my friend Rhiannon who helped lift the pie out of the tin for me, which was difficult due to the leaky pie.
First, I'd like to thank everyone for all the suggestions with the cauliflower. The two main suggestions I got fell along the lines of: mixed with potato and roasting.
(There was one suggestion for a casserole, but I didn't end up trying it. Sorry, Erin.)
I, therefore, split the cauliflower in half so I could try the two different ideas. I wouldn't call these recipes because I was just experimenting.
Potato and cauliflower cake
The first one I made was a potato and cauliflower cake, adapted from Laura Calder's Grated Potato Cake recipe. While this version was tasty, all the flavours covered up the cauliflower.
Ingredients
3 medium potatoes
1/2 head of cauliflower
clove of garlic, sliced
thyme
milk
olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
What I did (Not calling them directions, because they require too many tweaks)
I boiled the potatoes until they were just about ready. Then, I grated the potatoes. I'll probably skip the boiling next time.
I chopped the cauliflower into small florets, and boiled those a bit too.
Preheat oven to 400.
I mixed the potatoes, cauliflower, garlic, and thyme together. (Salt and pepper too.)
Add milk slowly until it comes together in cakes.
Coat both sides of the cake with olive oil.
Bake in oven until both sides are crispy and golden.
Roasted cauliflower
The other one I did was simply roasted the cauliflower.
Ingredients
cauliflower, cut into florets
olive oil
paprika
salt and pepper, to taste
What I did
Preheat oven to 400, or in this case, just keep the oven at 400.
Toss cauliflower in olive oil, salt and pepper. A bowl works well.
Lay out on a baking sheet, and sprinkle some paprika on top.
Bake until golden brown.
So, it turns out that, when cooked properly, cauliflower is delicious.
The roasting of the cauliflower caramelizes them, and brings out their natural sweetness, which is much better than bitter and soggy.
It's changed my opinion so much that I bought more this weekend. I'll probably end up roasting it again, unless somebody has a better suggestion.
I also decided to experiment with a cousin of cauliflower, called Romanesco broccoli. It looks simply amazing. Seeing as it's a type of broccoli, I'll probably eat it raw because I like raw broccoli (yeah, you read that right).
Anyways, once again, thanks everyone for your help. Cauliflower is back on my good side.
This week at the Covent Garden Market, I had an interesting interaction with one of the vendors. After asking if she had any beans left, which she unfortunately had sold out of, she suggested I buy some cauliflower.
Before I could control my facial expression, my immediate reaction gave away my thoughts on cauliflower.
To clarify, I'm not a picky eater. I will usually eat just about anything. I might complain some times or might offer suggestions, but I generally finish what I'm given.
But, when I have the choice to pick what I eat, I tend to avoid certain foods. Cauliflower is one of them.
My memories of cauliflower are overcooked, mushy, either bland or bitter, or drowned in cheese. And counter to the popular opinion, I dislike vegetables with cheese.
In the end, the lady convinced me to buy a small head of cauliflower and give cauliflower a second chance. It's therefore now sitting in my fridge, and is waiting for me to change my opinion of cauliflower.
Therefore, if you know any good recipes for cauliflower, let me know. I've heard that roasting cauliflower is delicious.
While I'm away from home, I never buy mangoes. Despite how much I like them, they for sure aren't local and it's difficult to find good quality ones. But, my parents came up to London yesterday, and they brought me three large ripe mangoes.
Earlier this summer, my friend, Jessica, suggested I try to make "the perfect mango salad". While I'm not sure if this is the perfect mango salad, but this is a simple and delicious mango salad.
Salad
2 large mangoes, diced
1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
cilantro, as much as you care for
Dressing
Equal parts of:
lemon juice
honey
sesame oil
You don't need much dressing because you want to enhance the mango, not overpower it.
I kind of put this salad together with what I had because I wasn't expecting to have mangoes. It might be considered too simple. Let me know what you think of it.
Most people should have heard of Summerlicious and Winterlicious, both food festivals in Toronto. London, Ontario started their own festival in this vein with the first ever Londonlicious.
Londonlicious is happening from July 10 to July 23. During that time, restaurants offer a prix fixe (fixed price) menu between $20 and $25 for a three course meal. Most of the restaurants are smaller restaurants that I would have probably never tried if Londonlicious.
It's located at 45 King Street. On the outside, it looks a bit boring, but once you enter, it has a nice atmosphere and a warm aesthetic.
Appetizer: Artichoke and Goat Cheese Springroll
My appetizer was an artichoke and goat cheese springroll with an apple-pear chutney. For me, it's hard to go wrong with goat cheese. It was delicious and tart, but the sweet chutney cut through the tartness.
Main Course: Elk Burger
The main course was the real star. I had a grilled 8oz elk burger (antlers not included). The meat was richer and more flavourful than a normal beef burger. It was on a sort of flatbread, which is a great idea because the flavour of the bread was not overpowering.
It was also served with "tru frites", which were like deep fried potato shavings. Unfortunately, I found them not crispy enough to be like chips, not substantial enough to be fries, and way too salty.
Dessert: Coconut Chiffon Cake
For dessert, I got a chiffon cake. It is a very light cake, topped with a dollop of whipped cream. The strawberry and raspberry sauce was amazing. The faint hint of coconut made a nice finish.
Overall, Londonlicious is a great idea because I tried new, different and nicer restaurant that I would not have tried without.
Will I continue trying new restaurants?
As much as I'd like to, I'm still a student and $25 for a meal is a lot. But, I still think it's a great idea to try some.
One thing I don't cook enough of is Chinese food. Chinese food is not Manchu Wok, nor is it white rice and over-boiled zucchini with ginger.
I'd like to learn more Chinese cooking, but I don't have the methods to learn. I don't have any Chinese cookbooks, and there isn't any Chinese cooking programming on the Food Network.
Also, my mom doesn't like cooking, so I can learn bits and pieces from her. But most of my cooking has been experimenting on my own.
Today, I tried making Chinese dumplings from scratch for the first time.
Chinese dumplings are made of minced meat and/or vegetables wrapped in dough, then sealed. The ones I made closely resemble "shuijiao" (refer to Jiaozi). The smaller ones resemble "xiaolongbao", but don't have the same filling.
Here is my recipe for Chinese dumplings. It makes approximately 40 to 50 dumplings. (And remember, I don't really measure things, so the units may be inexact or non-existent.)
Ingredients
The basic ingredients for the dough are:
3 cups flour
a bit of salt
a few glugs of vegetable oil
enough cold water to bind the flour into dough
The filling consisted of:
1 pound of ground pork (Bought mine from the Covent Garden Farmer's Market)
napa cabbage, finely sliced
green onion finely sliced
cilantro, chopped
Chinese five spice
soy sauce, to taste
sesame oil, to taste
Recipe
Mix dough ingredients. Knead until smooth. Let rest for 30 minutes.
While dough is resting, mix filling ingredient together.
After 30 minutes, split dough into 4 sections. Roll each section out.
Use a cup to cut out circular rounds of dough.
Once rounds are complete, roll the round out a little more. Spoon in some filling. Not too much filling though.
Crimp edges.
You can cook the dumplings by boiling them until they float, as I did. I think you can try pan-frying them too.
Check out that crimping technique around the edges.
I also ended up with extra dough leftover, so I tried to make noodles. I basically kneaded the extra dough for longer, which makes it a bit more elastic. I then rolled it out and sliced it into noodles.
You can add a little soup, a little cilantro and a drizzle of sesame oil, and you get a nice meal.
For my first time making dumplings from scratch, they turned out well. It was a great experience, albeit a bit time-consuming. I recommend getting friends over to help.
P.S. My inspiration for Chinese cooking is Martin Yan. He had an awesome show called "Yan Can Cook". You can still see it sometimes on TV in the afternoon. Here's a clip from his show:
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