And we're back

Back from Vancouver!!

I know it's been a while since I last posted, but August has been a bit crazy at the best of times. Paris journal is done, internship is done and had a nice vacation to boot. And now for the food!

As soon as we hit Vancouver, after an amazing, well fed train ride from Toronto, my friend and I started scoping out the many food carts that pepper the streets of downtown. Each was awesome.

Kaboom Box!

The first was Kaboom Box, out on Granville street for the weekend pedestrian festivals. This cart focuses on fresh, local fish, sustainable meat and organic veggies for all their menu items. My friend got the kaboom box fish and chips while I had the "world famous hot smoked salmon salmwich."Both were really, really good. My salmwich had home-made maple coleslaw in it, which is normally something I wouldn't go for since I have this condition that makes all coleslaw taste the same: awful, and artificial. This was the cure for that condition, it was so fresh and different, especially with the spicy mayo. The slab of a fish steak certainly helped as well. I also finished my friend's tempura battered fish and chips. Light weight.

 Hot Smoked Salmon Sandwich!!!

Tempura Battered, Kaboom Box Fish & Chips.

Our second visit was to Japadog, and we actually ended up going twice. The first time we split a Negimiso dog, made of Turkey wish miso sauce, green onions and Japanese mayo. It was unbelievably good. I'll leave it at that. The second time we tried their signature dog, the Terimayo which had teriyaki sauce and seaweed. Equally, unbelievably good. They have four carts sprinkled around town right now and are planning to open one in New York City in November of this year. If we go on the school trip again, I know where we're eating!

Japadog's Negimiso dog.


Our third visit was to the Roaming Dragon cart, which sadly wasn't operating on their regular menu since they were at the PNE when we came by. That being said, the Dragon Clubs we had weren't bad, way too much daikon and cilantro though. Lemongrass chicken makes for a great club sandwich!

Beef Dragon Club.

Our final cart was one that was recommended many times to us by Steve, our tour guide for our two Tourguys tours that we took (we didn't have time for the 'eat your cart out' tour, we did the Gastown and downtown tours. Check 'em out, they're awesome too!). A cart originally out of Tofino B.C., the Tacofino truck was by far our favorite. We both got the fish taco, which featured tempura battered cod with chipotle mayo, cabbage and salsa fresca on a flour tortilla. Holy things I shouldn't say in public, it was good. If you do nothing else in Vancouver, go to this cart, and order the fish taco. Preferably lots of them. These guys take locally and recently caught fish directly from the government docks in Vancouver and make these things from scratch, and you can taste the amazingness that goes into them.

Yep, she's holding a taco.

FISH TACOS!!!

Strictly speaking this last one isn't a cart, it's a full blown restaurant, but the lunch we had is very much worthy of written recognition. The Sandbar on Granville Island offers quite the menu, but after splitting a Tuscan flat bread with onions and goat cheese, my friend and I got the same order, the island club. Shrimp and Dungeness Crab salad come together with Bacon and Guacamole to create one hell of a sandwich. The fries were suspiciously like those one can get from a McCains bag, but still good, and the sandwich more than made up for it. It was one of the last things we did on the tip, and now that I'm back home, broke and about to start school again, it was good way to end the summer. Let fall begin with food!

The Island Club of Amazing!

As a side note to this post, the first three carts have had their photographs taken by my good friend Rob. I was too busy eating to bother, so I stole his photos for here. I am crediting him of course, so check out his Flickr feed: infectedroot
Tacofino and Sandbar are my photos, I finally remembered to take the pictures before eating the food.

Summer writing...

What I'd rather be doing. 

Picnicing in Paris versus writing about Paris in an academic manner.

What can you do?

Keep on writing. I want to get this done before running away to Vancouver. Especially now that we've lengthened the trip to include an overnight trip to Seattle. Back to writing about the Carnavalet I go.

A variety of things

Happy Civic Holiday! or Simcoe Day! or BC day! and a variety of other names this August long weekend seems to have. It's Simcoe Day where we are. So far as I'm concerned, it's a day to clean this place up.

My apartment's a bit of a disaster. Not even close to one by other people's standards, but both my roommate and I are working long, 9-5 days at the moment, so we haven't swept, vacuumed or put things away with any enthusiasm in a long time. We did get a start on that yesterday, since while I was at a baseball game, she was at ikea with a friend and got some great shelving units for our kitchen and linen closet for more space and organization. Pictures to come.

I've been doing some cooking lately, nothing too exciting though. This week has been very repetitive and boring by way of cuisine. That being said, I have discovered an amazingly easy recipe for dumplings, something I have never made before. This is another Kitchn find, and is so quick and easy to make. I may have to start keeping ricotta in my fridge on a regular basis, since it makes a good quick dinner. It's always a little different each time since I vary the herbs each time too!

Original recipe here.

Ricotta Dumplings with Chèvre and Herbs!

serves 2 generously as a main dish, or 4 as a side dish

Ingredients:
1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons of water, as needed
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Handful fresh herbs (rosemary, flat-leaf parsley, sorrel, mint, thyme, or combination thereof)
2 ounces fresh chèvre

Place a 3-quart (or larger) saucepan of water over high heat. Salt generously and bring to a boil.
While waiting for the water to boil, whisk together the ricotta and eggs. Add the flour, salt, and a sprinkle of fresh black pepper. Mix together quickly and lightly with a spoon. If the dough is too thick and floury, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of water. 

Turn the dough out onto a floured countertop and quickly pat it out. (Don't add too much flour; these will be just slightly sticky.) Pat the dough out until it is about 1/2-inch thick, and cut into 1-inch squares. Using a pizza cutter that had been dipped in flour every couple of cuts works really well.

Drop these little squares into the boiling water and cook for 2 to 4 minutes, or until they float to the top and are fully cooked inside. Remove them from the water with a slotted spoon. 

Pour the water out of the pan and place back over medium heat. Melt the butter in the pan. While the butter is melting, chop the herbs roughly. When the butter has melted, add the herbs and cook for just a few seconds, stirring them until fragrant. Turn off the heat and add the cooked dumplings back to the pan. Toss with the herbed butter. Add the goat cheese in small dollops and toss.
Serve immediately. 

 Makes for some great leftover lunch the next day too!

In other news, vacation update! My friend and I were up late a few nights ago and found a great travel deal that was hard to pass up, 75% off is hard to argue with. So, as a result, we're going from Toronto to Vancouver by Train!!!

See that big, long red line? That's us for four days!!

We each got a one-person room which included all of our meals on the trip for a fraction of what the room would normally cost. We're also spending a few days in Vancouver upon arrival and the flying back to Toronto. Back to the homeland I go!

Corn Bake and Cottages

So I'm still working on this regular posting idea. We'll get there.

In other news, we had a fabulous time at the cottage this past weekend. The weather couldn't have held out better for us and the food was plentiful. $240 for five people's worth to be slightly more exact. And don't think we wasted any of it. All that's left that didn't come home with us is a box of fudgecicles that we left as a gift to the next occupants. They certainly weren't going to make the car trip back home, so in the freezer they stayed.


The above is about all the digital photos I took over the weekend. I brought my film camera and used that for most of the trip. Once all the rolls are developed, I may scan some of the pictures and put them up here, depending on how they turn out.

Once I got back I had a quick look at the finances and re-discovered that I'm still broke. Time to get creative with the menu again. I happened to have had two cans of corn in the pantry for a long time (do they expire? It doesn't say anywhere on the can...), and found this fabulous recipe for a cheesy corn bake on The Kitchn website! Works for me. I used half of the red pepper since I discovered part of the one I had was a bit funky on the inside. I then substituted the rest of it with some chopped mushrooms I had lying around, throwing them in with the peppers.


Cheesy Corn Bake

Serves 4 - 6

1 red bell pepper, diced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk 

1 cup freshly grated cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons cream cheese
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Pinch of cayenne pepper
4 cups corn, fresh or frozen*

1-2 green onions (I sprinkled them on before serving as a garnish and a hint of the crisp, as the cooking reality shows are saying these days)

Preheat oven to 375°.

Sauté bell pepper in a little bit of olive oil over medium to medium high heat. Set aside. 

In a heavy sauce pan, melt butter on medium-low to medium heat. Add flour and whisk until smooth (and the flour taste is cooked out), about three minutes. Pour in the milk and cook, constantly stirring, until very thick. Mix in cheddar and cream cheese and stir until melted and creamy. Remove from the heat and season with salt and cayenne. 

Combine the cheese sauce, red pepper, and corn in a large bowl. Taste and add more salt and pepper, if desired. Pour into a baking dish, cover and bake until hot and bubbly, about 35 minutes. You can remove the cover for the last 10-15 minutes to bubble it a bit more.

*If using frozen corn, steam and drain it before adding it to the recipe.

 Oh yes. So much cheese. So good.

Slight twist

I really do need to update this more often, or at least consistently at specific times. Maybe once a week, I could probably handle that.

Moving on. I had the rest of the week planned so far as dinners go, except tonight for some reason. So, a-scavenging I go! I had wanted to make my paneer potato fry-up, as posted here, and here (sort of), but not had I run out of onions and potatoes, my leftover paneer was decidedly funky. So, I used a spare sweet potato I had from a pizza recipe I tried earlier.

In other news, My mom and I went to the Aberfoyle Antique Market over the weekend! I love this place, it's a great combination of antiques and flea market finds. The prices are fairly reasonable throughout, and you can always find something, as can be shown by most of my antique camera collection. I didin't get too much this year, but I did find some tintypes in really good shape. They were super cheap so I got two! I also found these.

I think I'm good, but they did seem well priced.

In other, other news, a few of us are heading up North to Muskoka for a weekend at the cottage. By 'the' cottage I mean my friend's co-worker's cottage, who kindly rents it to us during the summer. There will be photos of the obscene amount of BBQ that happens over the weekend to come.

Happy Canada Day!!

This picture was taken on this day, five years when I was in India on Study Abroad as part of my undergraduate degree. We had been invited to a Canada Day party by the consulate where we feasted on an amazing Indian buffet and marveled at the floral Canadian flag that had been commissioned for the event (re: above picture). Everyone we met along the way during this trip went out of their way to make us feel welcome and safe. The manager of the hostel we were staying at found out it was our country's national day while we were in India, and spent an entire day trying to find us a red and white cake. A tough task, and well appreciated all round.

One of my many Canadian travels, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Started the trip with some sailing round the bay on a pirate ship. Spent the rest of the trip eating a lot of crab, lobster, mussels and a variety of fish. So began my love affair with East coast fare.

Two years ago, I took advantage of a whirlwind deal to London, England and Dublin, Ireland for a week. While waiting for my relatives in Trafalgar Square, I noticed the Canadian Embassy. At the time, they were pimpin' out Vancouver for the upcoming 2010 Olympics games, along with the usual tourism efforts. It was nice to see a slice of home while abroad.

This, is the most Canadian thing I have ever done while abroad. I found a Tim Horton's in Dublin, Ireland. Complete with bad coffee, tea and doughnuts. I had to have some tea and a doughnut, partially because it was hilariously Canadian, as well as making up for the missed breakfast earlier that morning.

Happy Birthday Canada! It's still early in the day yet out in Toronto, on what's looking to be a beautiful, sunny and warm weekend. All the best and a few hundred more years.