Dinner in the Yellow House

My Moss Street Market Haul

Hello!  I am still alive!

Very sorry to have taken two weeks off blogging unannounced.  Every day I thought I would find some time to blog and I just didn't.  You see, since August 17, my spouse has been travelling, making me a temporary single mom.  Somehow, that, combined with a big work project, has resulted in my having very little time for myself :)

But I'm back now and with lots of foody things to report on.  The first is my haul at the Moss Street Market yesterday.  Moss Street Market is sort of a miniature urban farmer's market (not that the farmers are urban, I mean, the market is in an urban location) with a bunch of crafts and stuff thrown in.  I don't go there much, but when I do go, I always love it.  My two favourite things about it are the International Women's catering co-op tent (always a huge line for their delectable samosas, empanadas, curries, and more) and the playground.  Whoever came up with the idea to have the market in the parking lot of Sir James Douglas school, with a playground right there, was a genius.  Even fiesty little anti-shoppers like 20-month-old M'hijo can be cajoled into visiting a market like this.  Here's my little monkey right after he took the pint of baby squash I bought and poured them all over himself.  He's also holding a bear-shaped bottle of B's honey.

Apart from squash and honey, I was thrilled to find, for the first time ever, rapini.  I have read about this dark leafy green, also known as broccoli rabe, and wanted to try it for a long time.  But I've never seen it for sale.  The closest I've found is something called broccolini, which is less leafy, more broccoliesque.  I'm hoping to cook it up with some Galloping Goose Italian sausage tomorrow.

I also bought a spider wort plant, having fallen in love with the electric purple blooms the day before when I saw them for the first time in a garden.  But the pièce de résistance was this:

TAMALES!

Real good Mexican tamales!  Hot to eat right away or frozen to take home!  3.50 a piece!

Mole, salsa verde, and poblano!  For sale in Victoria, which is located, don't forget, in the Great White North.  A real miracle find, to be sure.  I was so excited that I forgot I hardly had any cash left.  Luckily, the owner of the tamale stand, called, appropriately, Mexican Tamales, took pity on me and gave me a two for one deal.  He also had agua de fresa (strawberry water), a glass of which he gave to the very thirsty and grateful M'hijo.

So, quite a good little shopping trip, if I may say so.  There were plenty of other tempting veggies (bitter melon and Japanese eggplant among them) and plants (fig tree), and I didn't even get around to visiting the International Women's Catering Co-op, so I'll be returning to the Moss Street Market soon.

Mon Petit Choux, Nanaimo

The highlight of an otherwise dull trip up to Nanaimo a couple of weeks ago was the discovery of a wonderful new restaurant on Commercial Street called Mon Petit Choux.  It was the basket of baguettes in the window that drew us in, and boy were we glad that it did. 

This unpretentious but chic little cafe/bakery consists of a large triangular room with a red floor, blue banquettes and two walls full of windows, as well as additional seating closer to the front counter.  The ceiling is high, but the space manages not to feel like an airport cafeteria thanks to Versaillesesque crown molding, stencilling, and lighting fixtures. 

On the morning we visited Mon Petit Choux everyone in the family was in the need of a little comfort, and we found it in their short and sweet breakfast menu and cappuccinos.  Sahsez (the picky eight-year-old) ordered the made-on-site granola, yogurt and fruit and Tobias ordered the bread pudding.  I agonized over the decision between a Croque Madame, which I'd never tried, or scrambled eggs with rosti, croissant, and fruit, eventually choosing the Croque Madame.  Everything was delicious, and we left having a much rosier view of Nanaimo than we would have had we been forced to eat at Smitty's, which was our unfortunate fate last year.

This past Sunday, we returned to Nanaimo and of course, we scheduled a visit to Mon Petit Choux.  Then we discovered a few more things about our new favourite breakfast spot: it has been open for just five weeks, it is open from 8-4 every day except Sunday, and the server has a great memory, noticing that Sahsez and I had had haircuts since our last visit.

I couldn't bear to try something new, enamoured as I was with my Croque Madame which, I am now able to report, is just like a Croque Monsieur, but with an egg on top.  The first time I ordered this, it was on baguette, the second time, on croissant.  Both ways are good.  The ham was black forest, the cheese was gruyere, and the egg was fried just enough to allow a nice little yolk-coating for the bread.  Yum.

Sahsez branched out and tried the scrambled egg and rosti.  I, of course, sampled from her plate.  The eggs were nice and creamy, but the rosti was the real star here: not too salty, nice and crispy, with a real potato flavour that hashbrowns sometimes lack.

Tobias stuck with his bread pudding, which they now make with leftover croissants, meaning that you might luck out and get some hunks of chocolate in your pudding, from the previous day's pain au chocolat. It was served with fruit, cream, and a little pitcher of maple syrup.

 

Both times we visited Mon Petit Choux, I gazed out the window at the folks across the street, eating their breakfasts at Charlie's Restaurant and wondered "Why would someone ever go there when they could be here?"  On the second visit, I noticed a sign that read "Full breakfast, only 2.95!" and had my answer.

While it's true that the prices at Mon Petit Choux are not bargain basement,  I feel they are still a good value, given that the dishes are prepared with care, and the breads, pastries, and granola are all created onsite.  The bread pudding was probably the best deal at 5.50.  The Croque Madame was 7.95; the scrambled eggs were 8.50; the granola and yogurt was 6.50.  Sahsez couldn't finish her breakfast and shared quite a bit with her brother, so really, the kids ate for 4.25 each.  I guess if I were feeding more than two kids and they were big eaters, I may not be able to take them to Mon Petit Choux, but you know, I always feel that really tasty food fills you up more than bland, dull food, so provided M'hijo (my 19-month-old) doesn't start eating like a trucker, I think I'll keep taking the kids for good, delicious, but not behemoth-sized breakfasts.

Which brings me to the topic of kid-friendliness.  Mon Petit Choux, by virtue of its friendly staff, open space, reasonable acoustics, and great food, is a great example of what I consider to be kid-friendly.  That said, I didn't notice any highchairs (but I didn't ask, either, so perhaps they have them) and there wasn't a basket of kids toys, like they have at Ottavio.  Also, no kid-specific breakfast.  To me, these things aren't a big deal, but other parents may like to see them. 

All in all, Mon Petit Choux is an excellent reason to get off the in-island highway and venture into downtown Nanaimo for a breakfast, a lunch, or for one of their amazing pastries and breads, including croissant, pain au chocolat, burnt-butter tarts, danishes, and of course, choux à la crème.

Mon Petit Choux
101-120 Commercial Street, Nanaimo, British Columbia
8-4 Tuesday-Sunday
Breakfast: $5.50 - $8.50
Lunch: $7.50 - $9.00
Pastries: $2.00 - $5.00

The Picky Seven-year-old is no longer!

Now she is a picky eight-year-old! 

In a frenzy of monkey-themed gifts, activities, piñatas, and food, my big girl turned eight a couple of weeks ago.  Happy birthday, little monkey.

Suggested menu for a monkey-crazed eight-year-old's birthday party:  monkey cupcakes and banana ice cream.  I got the idea for decorating the cupcakes from My Little Mochi (who got it from Kelly at Buzzville), with some adjustments to compensate for my laziness.  The ears and mouth are mad with vanilla wafers, with chocolate icing covering half of the wafers to make the semi-circles required for the ears.  The nostrils are mini-chocolate chips.  The eyes are white choclate chips, upside down, with mini chocolate chips ontop.  The smile was the only part I actually had to pipe on with icing and as you can see, the results were a little messy.  The kids didn't mind though.

The banana ice cream recipe I used is from Alton Brown, but I can't say I really recommend it.  First of all, one of the whole points of making homemade ice cream, for me, is that I can leave out things like corn syrup.  Second of all, the result tastes a little too strongly of bananas for most palates, I think.  The one great thing about the recipe is how very easy it was to make.  Just toss some stuff in a food processor, process, and then toss the result in the ice cream maker.  The kids were reasonably pleased, though several only had a couple of spoonfuls before pronouncing it "too banana-ey". 

Remembrance of Crêpes Past (and Present)

My earliest memory of crêpes is not a good one.  My mother put some in my lunchbox in kindergarten and my fellow five-year-olds were curious. 

"What ARE those things?" one asked.

"Crêpes!" I proudly replied as I tucked into my special treat. 

She looked at me, incredulous.  Then her incredulity turned to rage. 

"They are NOT!"

She ran off to find the teacher, shouting  "Teacher! Teacher, Rebeca's lying!  She said she has grapes for lunch but those aren't grapes!"

Then, of course, the whole class had to take a peek at my lunch and see just what it was I was trying to pull off as grapes.  They were disgusted, not only by my lying, but at what they saw as a pitiful excuse for pancakes and "anyway, pancakes aren't lunch food", didn't I know that? 

I finished my lunch sadly and very self-consciously.  And so began a long tradition of me having to eat things in my lunch that everyone else in the class pronounced a) disgusting, b) weird, c) too healthy, d) certainly not lunch food or e) all of the above. 

Years later, I got completely addicted to the crêpes available at one particular crêpe stand in the Quartier Latin (Anna, there's your gratuitous French for the day!) in Paris during a brief visit there.  They would make them to order, and put any number of fillings in them.  My favourite was a very sharp cheese, maybe a comté;?  It got so that when my travelling companions and I were deciding where to eat, they wouldn't even ask me anymore.

ONE OF THEM:  Okay, where should we go for lunch, guys?

MOI:  Well, I think that...

ONE OF THEM: Sorry, I should rephrase.  Where, ASIDE FROM THAT BLOODY CRÊPE STAND, should we go for lunch, guys?

When I returned to Paris five years later, I couldn't find the same crêpe stand, and all the ones I could find were now stuffing their crêpes; to within an inch of their flimsy little lives, serving them more like giant wraps than the teeny little flat just-slightly-filled crêpes that I had loved.  I tried one stuffed with all manner of meats and cheeses, and it was okay, but not the same. 

My next bunch of crêpey memories are much more pleasant, for this was Tobias' choice of a seduction breakfast when I would stay the night at his place during our courtship.  Actually, I guess seduction isn't quite right, since by the morning, I was pretty much a sure thing.  It was just a simple romantic gesture.  Although, simple isn't quite right either.  With him, crêpe-making was quite a production.  Always a double batch of the Joy of Cooking sweet recipe, and at least three different kinds of fillings, elaborately laid out on the breakfast table, and whipped cream, lots of whipped cream. 

Those were the days. 

As for making crêpes myself, well, I never really saw the need, even though I do enjoy it. Tobias was always much better at it than I was.  But recently, having acquired a silicon spatula that can handle high heat, and having gotten my cast iron pans to a point of seasonedness that makes cooking things on them foolproof, I think my crêpe skills can now rival my spouse's (though I do tend to get impatient and undercook them).

The first few are always a little too thick, and I never wait long enough for the pan to heat up, so they take longer than they ought to to cook.  Tobias calls crêpe-making a selfless act, because the cook doesn't get to eat until the rest of the family has had their fill, but once I get a groove, and the pan is hot enough, they are a joy to make. My cast iron omelette pan has such a perfectly nonstick surface that the crêpes slide easily over it, and if the flip doesn't go perfectly, it is easy to flatten the crêpe out again. 

Which is not to say that the best part of the morning isn't when I finally finish up the batter and get to tuck into my own share of the spoils.

I was inspired to make crêpes this morning by Lisa's post about Mollie Katzen's Cherry-Ricotta Crêpes, but somehow I remembered the recipe wrong, and thought the ricotta went in the filling, not in the batter.  So, by the time I fired up the computer and checked Lisa's blog, I already had my batter resting in the fridge.  Maybe next Saturday I'll try the ricotta version.

Still, if I hadn't read Lisa's post, I wouldn't have bought California cherries, and I'm glad that I did: they were delicious, if a little tart.  It's a long wait until cherries come into season here in the Great White North.  The topping, I'm pleased to say, was all Canadian. 

It goes without saying that everyone in the family was crazy about this breakfast. 

Beets and Rosé on the beach

Do you know that prior to acquiring Vegetable Love I sometimes let the beets from my SPUD harvest box go bad in the pantry?  Well it's true, I did.  This is shameful in light of the discovery of so many great beet recipes, courtesy of the great Kafka.  The first was the Red Russian Soup, which was a taste sensation of the highest degree.  The next three were made from the same bunch of beets.  One bunch of beets -- three separate dishes.  People, beets are versatile. 

So, Wednesday night we took a break from Tae Kwon-Do and decided to have a cycling picnic.  What's a cycling picnic,  you ask?  Well, a cycling picnic is a picnic which you get to by cycling.  Sounds boring, right?  Only if you've never experienced the frustration and joy that is trying to stuff all the necessary items for a picnic for four into two panniers.  Frustration when you can't find the plastic wine glasses and have to settle for glass tumblers that clank around worryingly in the bags as you ride along.  Joy when you arrive at the beach and see that nothing has spilled and the food is still in good shape.  (Though not for long; sand will get into everything, no matter how careful you are.)

The menu was a classic "Use up the SPUD box" meal.  We had to use celery, beets, potatoes and dill.  So we ate

• beet salad with celery, dill and capers (from Vegetable Love)
• beet greens with bacon, white beans and walnuts (from Vegetable Love)
• potato salad with dill and lemon (from my brain)

I thought such a meal would present Nick, our food and wine pairing guru at Mark Anthony (2560-A Sinclair Road), with a difficult challenge.  Not so!  He was totally ready for us and when I explained what we were eating, immediately cried out "Rosé!"  Okay, maybe he didn't "cry" it out, but he did seem excited, and ran to the back of the store to grab a copy of the latest Wine Spectator, where they talked about pairing beets with rosé wines. 

He wanted us to try a sparkling rose by Deinhard and indeed, we wanted to try it, but not for a beach picnic.  Not when we were going to be drinking out of the kids' milk glasses.  No, for this dinner we needed more of a workhouse (read, cheaper) rosé.  So we tried the Château Guiot Costières de Nîmes Rosé Rhone and it was great: a perfect cycling beach picnic wine to go with beets, beans and potatoes and snickerdoodles for dessert. 

The adults loved it all, the baby loved the beets and the beans and the picky seven-year-old ate just enough of the greens and beans to earn two cookies. 

Careful readers are thinking: didn't she say three dishes from beets?  Did she put beets in the potato salad too?  I did not, but I did save the cooking water from the beets and will be making something very cool with them this weekend.  Stay tuned. 

Presto Pasta Night: I ♥ NY Edition

The truth is, I've only ever been to New York once, and it was 11 years ago.  But I can love it from afar, can't I?  And one day I will love it in person again.  And when that day comes, the first thing I will love is a visit to S'mac, the macaroni and cheese restaurant.  Yes that's right, a restaurant that serves nothing but macaroni and cheese!  Only in New York. 

But since that visit is still long off, I have decided that I am going to try to recreate all of the scrumptious-sounding mac n' cheeses on the S'mac menu.  I see now that they have put up an instructional video and a recipe for their mozzarella mac n' cheese.  I didn't see that the last time I visited the website, or else I would have started my quest with that one.  Instead, I started with the one that sounded the tastiest: the manchego mac with fennel and shallots. 

Here is how I made it:

5 T butter
2 T flour
2 cups milk
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 onion, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
2 1/4 grated manchego cheese (available at Charelli's)
2 cups elbow macaroni
1-2 fennel bulbs, sliced
1 T olive oil
8 shallots, chopped
1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs

Put shallots and fennel in a pyrex dish with the olive oil and cook at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the fennel is to desired crunchiness.  Remove from oven, lower the oven temp to 350 degrees and chop up the vegetables a bit more if desired.  Set 6 cups of water to boiling in one large pot and the butter to melting in another.  Once the butter has melted, add the flour and cook over medium heat for a minute or so while whisking.  Whisk in the milk, add the onion, paprika and bay leaf and simmer for fifteen minutes to thicken, stirring frequently.  When the water boils, add salt and macaroni and cook for eight minutes. 

After the white sauce has thickened, remove from heat, remove the bay leaf, add salt and pepper to taste, and stir in the cheese.  Keep stirring until it has all melted.  This is the most fun part of the recipe.  Drain the macaroni and add it, with the vegetables, to the the sauce, mixing well.  Now spoon the mac n' cheese into a nice blue casserole.  Non-blue casseroles are also acceptable.

Melt the remaining 3 T of butter in a small pan and add the bread crumbs.  Cook over medium heat until browned a little, mixing with a wooden spoon.  Spread breadcrumbs over mac n' cheese and cook at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until bubbly. 

Serves 4 for supper, with a green salad in a plain vinaigrette and a nice crisp New Zealand sauvignon blanc (or in my case, beer and nothing). 

In the yellow house, everyone loved this, though the flavour of the manchego is pretty subtle.  Next time I would add more fennel (I used just one small bulb) and more shallots (I used six).  I am not opposed to a little Tabasco on top, but keep in mind that manchego is expensive and subtly flavoured, so if you want to taste it, go easy on the hot sauce and/or ketchup. 

Thanks again to the wonderful, stalwart Ruth, who is undertaking the amazing task of hosting Presto Pasta Night while she is in the throes of the South Beach Diet, Phase 1!  Good luck Ruth!

Coca-Cola Cupcakes (for Valentine's Day?)

As much as I would like to provide an entire suggested menu for a romantic Valentine's Day dinner here, the truth of the matter is that tomorrow evening I am going to be suiting up in protective gear and getting in some sparring practice at my dojahng.  Once I get home, I have no clue yet what I'll put on the table, but rest assured it won't be romantic.  In the yellow house, we save our romance for two days after Valentine's Day, which is our wedding anniversary.  Stay tuned for a report on our Brasserie L'Ecole anniversary dinner, coming this weekend I hope. 

That said, Valentine's Day is not only for lovers but also for children, and my seven-year-old Sahsez does not eschew the day as her parents do.  She makes her Valentines by hand and likes to bake something red or pink to celebrate. 

So, this weekend she took the heart-covered cupcake holders her Grandma bought her and filled them with Nigella's Coca-Cola cake batter.  She iced them with Coca-Cola icing and put sprinkles on top to make them Valentiney.  They were delicious: chocolately but not terribly so, and very soft.  We had a few for Sunday dinner dessert, gave a couple away, and Sahsez has had one in her lunch each day this week.  You don't need more than one at a sitting, and they seem to last pretty well and taste great with a cup of coffee for a decadent housewives' Monday morning celebration breakfast. 

Don't ask me what that expression on her face is all about.  I think you have to be seven to get it.

New Recipe Number 13: Coca-Cola Cupcakes

Snickerdoodles to the Rescue

Yesterday afternoon I was feeling a bit raw and downtrodden.  Several things led up to me feeling that way:

1) Reading Maus in bed the night before.  A very bad idea.  Maus is an excellent, excellent book, but the material couldn't be grimmer.  I dreamt about Nazis all night.  I woke up to find that I had tied my nightgown in a big knot in my sleep.  Not a good way to start the day.

2) Discovering that the local Starbucks charges $7.50 an hour for wi-fi.  $7.50 an hour.

3) Because of 2), making the unfortunate choice to read The National Post's Opinion page while I sipped a very untasty mug of Earl Grey.  If I had hoped to find comfort in the fact that the Holocaust is behind us now, reading the vitriol and barely-concealed hatred evident in the Post's letters was not the way to do that. 

4) Catching a few minutes of a ghastly TV programme called Flavor of Love.  My goodness it was awful.  I don't know if I'll ever be able to enjoy Public Enemy again. 

My daughter was going to be home from school in 25 minutes or so, and I had the idea to make her something yummy and comforting for an after school snack, and in so doing, also comfort myself a little.  I opened up one of a handful of recipe books on my shelf that I've never actually looked at, Jean Pare's Cookies.  I inherited this cookbook from my father-in-law after he passed away and the idea of making a recipe that maybe Grandpa had made upped the comfort factor of this activity.

I was spoiled for choice, and made the Snickerdoodles mostly, I admit, because of the name.  I just thought Sahsez (who is seven) would love to come home to a house smelling of cinnamon and the news that she was about to eat something called a Snickerdoodle.  I was right on both counts. 

Also, I figured that once I had made the first batch, she would probably make the rest of them for me, since the process is very kid-friendly.  And when I say kid-friendly, I don't mean something that a kid can do, but something that a kid would actually want to do.  Rolling dough into one-inch balls and then coating them with cinnamon and sugar definitely falls into that category. 

Snickerdoodles are tasty, sweet and cinnamony and doughy, but not the cookie to end all cookies.  Make them if you want to keep little hands busy, or if you need something sweet and soothing for yourself, but don't want to put forth a lot of effort (they are easy in the extreme). 

The recipe below makes four dozen, so make sure you have a plan in place to give some away.  Sahsez' best friend is ill so she took a dozen over to her place.  And if you get sick of eating them plain, and can't give anymore away, they do make a mean ice cream sandwich.

And did I feel better after baking four trays of what is essentially blobs of fat, sugar and starch?  Yes ma'am, I did.  Hooray for comfort food!

New Recipe Number 9: Jean Pare's Snickerdoodles

Blessed are those who own Kitchenaid mixers, for they will easily: cream together 1.5 cups sugar and 1 cup butter or margarine, then add two eggs, one at a time.  Then they will add 2.5 cups flour, 2 tsp. cream of tartar, 1 tsp. baking soda and 1/4 tsp. salt.  Then they will roll the dough into little one-inch balls and roll the balls around in 2 tbsp. sugar mixed with 2 tsp. cinnamon and cook the little balls of goodness at 400 for about 8 minutes.

For those without wicked-ass mixers, I'm sure you have your own way of dealing with this, and much better biceps than me.