Category Archives: cooking

Come join us at Eat Alberta

Posted on by bruleeblog
Eat Alberta

Eat Alberta

For the last little while I have been busily helping to organize a brand new food conference called Eat Alberta. Eat Alberta is about celebrating our local food heroes through hands-on learning, tastings, and lots of fun.

Ever wanted to learn how to make sausages or cheese? Curious about different types of honey or the proper way to brew a cup of coffee? Then this conference is the perfect place for you. It is being held in downtown Edmonton on Saturday, April 30th, and includes meals, keynote speakers, and an end of the day “wine” down.

We are hoping that this will be the first of many yearly conferences, but to do that we need this one to be a success. And for this conference to succeed, we need you! Registrations are now open at www.eatalberta.ca. I hope to see you there!

Christmas tips

Posted on by bruleeblog

Here’s a little Christmas present, from me to you.

Tip #1: Always check the expiry date on your baking powder before trying to actually bake anything. You will save yourself frustration, wasted labour, and baking that doesn’t turn out correctly.

Tip #2: If you don’t want to cook or eat leftovers on Christmas Day, head to Chinatown. Asian restaurants are pretty much the only places that are open on the 25th. Dim sum, anyone?

There will be a new Morocco blog post before the new year. One with lots and lots and lots of photos. Have a Merry Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate) everyone!

Asparagus and mushrooms recipe

Posted on by bruleeblog

A trip to the City Market last Saturday netted me a few goodies including two bunches of fresh Edgar Farms asparagus (where I bumped into Sharon from Only Here for the Food when we both raced there to grab some before they sold out), and a 1 lb. basket of mixed wild and domestic mushrooms from Mo-Na Food. I also picked up a small container of morels to experiment with, but more on that on another post. I did think about some fiddleheads as well, but I’ve bought them a couple of weeks in a row and I needed a bit of a break from them.

My farmers’ market bounty inspired to cook up a simple vegetarian dinner.

I snapped the bottom ends of the asparagus and gave them a quick rinse, then popped them into some boiling water for a very quick parboil. I then popped them into cold water in order to shock them and stop the cooking process.

While the asparagus cooled, I cleaned and roughly chopped up my mixed mushrooms, diced a couple of garlic cloves, and chopped up another six portobello mushrooms that I had bought at Costco and added that also to the mix. I stir fried the whole lot with about three tablespoons of margarine and reduced the heat to a medium high temperature.

stir-fried mushrooms

stir-fried mushrooms

Once they cooked through, I splashed in about a tablespoon and a half of shao hsing Chinese cooking wine and added salt and pepper to taste (very little salt, as the cooking wine has salt in it already).

I then started plating. First, some drained asparagus. Then, spoonfuls of mushrooms. And to top it all off, scoops of the sauce over the whole thing.

asparagus and mushrooms

asparagus and mushrooms

Simple, fresh, nutritious and delicious. Great with a side of brown rice, or maybe some roasted potatoes. Myself, I toasted some whole grain bread and dipped it into the sauce until it soaked everything up.

Alternatives to the Chinese cooking wine include soy sauce, cooking sherry, or oyster sauce.

A warning – the amount of mushrooms that I cooked were enough to make at least 6-8 servings. I had plenty of leftovers.

Molasses confusion

Posted on by bruleeblog

Whenever I buy molasses I forget to look up this stuff beforehand, and I usually stand there in the grocery aisle with a puzzled and panicked look on my face for a good five minutes before I pick up a package at random and hope for the best.

So that you too do not have to go through this, here is a little cheat sheet about the different kinds of molasses that you can buy. I know there are some other types  that you can pick up, or that these may be labelled under slightly different names, but these are the main types that I usually find in the grocery store.

Fancy molasses – used for baking, cooking, or straight up as a syrup

Blackstrap molasses – can be used for some baking or cooking, tastes bitter, is often used for health reasons (I know someone who takes spoonfuls of the stuff as an iron supplement as it is easier to absorb than other supplements.)

Lite molasses – lighter in colour and flavour than fancy molasses, contains less sugar than fancy molasses

Cooking molasses (also known as dark) – a mix of fancy and blackstrap, good for sauces and cookies

Kale chips

Posted on by bruleeblog

The kale I’ve seen in grocery stores over the summer has been limp, pathetic and unappealing. So last weekend when I saw some gorgeous kale at the Sundog Organic Farm at the City Market, I immediately grabbed two bundles. They were $4 per bundle, but seeing that the bundles were quite large they ended up being only slightly more expensive than kale sold at the grocery store and much more healthy looking.

I stuck some in a soup (this one, but without the beans). And the rest went towards my kale chips experiments.

kale chips

kale chips

I’ve seen kale chips on many blogs, and I was dying to try it out myself. I tried varying some of the measurements but I’ve found that keeping it simple is best. I made about four trays that night. And another two the next day. They’re horribly addicting! And once you master this version you can try variations like adding dried chili flakes, or making salt and vinegar chips.

Kale chips

Ingredients
2 tsp olive oil per baking tray
One bunch of kale leaves
Salt

Directions
Wash your kale, rip or cut into potato chip sized pieces, and dry throughly. The more dry the leaves are, the better. (I spun them in a salad spinner, and then ended up leaving them to air dry for a while.)

Preheat your oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit/200 Celsius.

On a lined baking sheet, spread out a single layer of kale leaves. Drizzle 2 tsp of olive oil over the leaves. This may not look like a lot, but any more than this and your end product may be too oily.

Very lightly sprinkle the leaves with salt.

Pop the baking tray into the oven for approximately 10 minutes. The kale will turn a rich forest green colour during the baking process, but don’t take them out until they start to brown! If you take them out too early the kale won’t be crispy.

Once the leaves start browning, remove from the oven and enjoy. You can add more salt at this point if you think you need it, but I find that less salt makes these taste better.

How do you know that they’re done? Try picking one up. If it’s crisp enough they will crumble in your hand if you’re not careful because they are very fragile and similar in texture to deep fried parsley.