I’m a big fan of Japanese foods. In fact, the only Japanese foods I’ve tried that I haven’t liked have been displeasing not because they tasted particularly bad, but because of their texture. I’m not good with things like raw squid, litchi fruit (not Japanese but exactly the texture that squicks me out) and that raw, finely grated yam that looks like loose pizza dough that many sushi masters consider a delicacy.
So, I was surprised when I learned that shirataki tofu noodles (pictured above) are made from a blend of that same yam and tofu because I really liked them.
While I wouldn’t likely use them in place of Italian pasta with tomato sauce, these noodles can add protein or stand in as a gluten-free alternative to regular pasta in many more dishes.
Need some ideas? Try tofu noodles…
• under a stir fry
• in miso, chicken or vegetable broth
• tossed with finely minced green onion or chives and tossed with some sesame oil and sea salt as a side dish
• in place of high carb rice noodles in salad rolls or a green mango salad
Have you tried tofu noodles yet? If so, what did you think? And, more important still, what did you make? I’m sure there must be dozens more great uses for them beyond the paltry list above.
While it may work for Ina Garten to be a barefoot cooking contessa, I was reminded twice last week of how important it is to wear shoes while you’re cooking.
The first event was pretty minor. I was making dinner in my sock covered feet and toppled over a glass that shattered into dozens of pointy shards all around me. Fortunately, Martin was around and he brought a broom and swept a path for me to use to escape from danger. Not such a big deal but a nudge to wear shoes in the kitchen especially when home alone.
The second reminder came while I was getting a pedicure (I recently joined a yoga studio and realized while doing my sun salutations that my feet were all kinds of ugly). The woman in the chair next to me had one foot that looked normal (or as normal as 40-something-year-old women’s feet look after years of wearing high heels) and one foot that was red, swollen and scabbed over in places. Turns out she had been cooking in bare feet and when she was removing a tray from the oven, hot food tumbled down onto her bare foot, searing it very badly. In fact, although her injury occurred a month ago she was still not able to immerse her damaged foot in water so she was just having a polish change.
So, although summer is just around the bend, try to remember to wear shoes while you’re grilling and cooking. After all, generations of women protested against men who wanted them to be pregnant and barefoot in their kitchens so that people like me could have stimulating careers and unscathed feet. Your toes will thank you.
Hmmmm! Smell that? It’s cherry blossom season here in Toronto. The trees in High Park are in full bloom and the sunshine and blue skies have made enjoying this fleeting segment of the year supremely enjoyable.
What is it about cherries that makes them so incredibly delicious fresh but - at least until recently – so cloying when used as a flavouring? And, even when they are fresh, cherries have traditionally been so outrageously expensive that it’s hard to enjoy them very often. The good news is that somehow flavourists have isolated the true flavour of cherry in a much purer, more enjoyable way than ever before and the result is a spate of new cherry flavoured products. Likewise, the recognition of cherries – especially sour cherries – as a super fruit has made them an increasingly popular fruit choice for companies that make fruity foods.
Here’s a sampling of just a few of the latest cherry and cherry flavoured products:
Drinks:
Food:
See anything appealing on these lists? If so, what product would you splurge on if you felt like indulging in a cherry flavoured treat? I’m intrigued by the granola and – probably in error – I’m tempted to try the rum. Could it really be delicious if it contains aloe vera and cherry?
I suppose it’s part of being my age, but people just keep dying. Uncles, great uncles, neighbours, friends’ fathers and mothers… we’ve had a spate of bad news the last six months and each time, I’ve turned to either the florist (for those that were far away) or to the stove to show people how sorry I was to hear their sad news.
When I look back at the condoling foods I’ve made over the last six months, strong themes emerge: almost every recipe I’ve made for someone sad has shared two common characteristics: 1) they’ve been foods I love to eat myself; 2) they’ve been laden with comforting calories.
1. Brownies with caramel mascarpone frosting
2. Buttery banana chocolate chip bread
3. Lemon tarts
4. Meatballs with bocconcini in tomato sauce (pictured above)
5. Macaroni and cheese
It could be that I just have rich taste in food, but I think it’s more that misery loves calories. If mourning isn’t the true time for comfort food, when is?
If you wanted to bring someone comfort through food, what would you make them? And, would it be the same thing you’d hope they’d make for you if you were in a similar situation?
Photo credit
In case you were wondering, I don’t have any tattoos. I thought about getting one a few times but I could never commit to an image I’d want on my body forever. After all, I’ve spent copious amounts of money and time trying to get rid of the things I already do have forever (such as scars and hair) so why add another permanent feature? Also, once I heard that getting a tattoo was painful, I was completely out.
Recently, it seems that everywhere I turn people are talking about food tattoos. First Martin told me that one of the chefs at Pangaea is getting a tattoo of a pork chart on his arm. And then the other day on Twitter I got into a hypothetical conversation with @blm849 about what foods we’d like to have as tattoos. He very wisely pointed out that one should only consider food tattoos of foods they really and truly love (his choice would be chocolate cake). And you know what? He’s right. It’s the best way to have your favourite foods every day with no worry about calories!
If I ever get a food inspired tattoo, it will be just like this one featuring pancakes! What about you? If you had a food tattoo, what would it be?
And, if you happen to have one, do you still love that food or has seeing it every day made it less appealing?
Last Wednesday morning at breakfast, while I was sipping a latte (made with a illy espresso pod and organic super filtered milk) and eating yogurt topped with Ace Bakery granola, I heard a very interesting segment on CBC radio (click the link called “10 Hungry Torontonians” to listen yourself). The segment was about a food experiment featuring 10 participants who planned to sustain themselves for 7 days on the contents of a food bank hamper. It was, pardon the pun, food for thought when it explored how a person would divide up a social assistance cheque to cover shelter, food and other necessities.
You can visit the Do the Math website and use their calculator tool to discover what your food budget would be if your sole income was derived from social assistance. Given my age, if I were a single person, I’d qualify for $585 a month in social assistance to pay for everything. That means the Ace granola at $7.99 a box would definitely have to go.
What would you do if you had less than $30 a week to feed yourself? What would be on your shopping list? Likely canned baked beans and ramen noodles – both cheap and easy to prepare (remember, cooking equipment, spices and other ingredients aren’t cheap either). I doubt you’d have too many pieces of meat or any pricey oranges or tomatoes in your cart either. You might have some of the imported 2 for $3 packages of strawberries I saw at the grocery store on Saturday and you likely wouldn’t care that they had been shipped from California.
Tonight in Toronto there will be a community town hall at the Wychwood Barns where the participants in the experiment will share their experience of living on a food bank hamper. Like many of the people reading here I won’t be able to attend; but, like everyone reading here today, I can (and will) remember that I’m not only very lucky to have plenty to eat, but that I can make a difference in the world by asking the government to increase social assistance so that people can have both a roof over their heads and the nutrition they need to feel up to pulling their lives together. Or (actually make that ‘and’), you can drop a few nutritious items off at the local food bank; someone will definitely appreciate it.
Among the most frequently asked cooking questions I hear is “how can I make scallops like a restaurant chef?”
Unlike many of the other frequently asked questions, this one is easy to answer in just a few hundred words so I’m going to share the answer here (I know, I’m a lazy cow!)
There are three steps to cooking scallops perfectly:
1. After pulling off and discarding the tough, knob-shaped muscle on the side of each scallop, rinse the scallops and then pat completely dry on paper towel.
2. Heat a heavy bottomed skillet coated until slick with oil (or a combo of oil and butter) until it is smoking hot. Reduce the heat to medium-high. Add the perfectly dry scallops and cook them for 90 seconds per side until very well browned and opaque all the way through.
3. Season with salt and pepper.
As long as you were sold fresh, untreated scallops, this technique will work perfectly since the fresher scallops are, the more natural sugars they have brown on the pan and form a yummy crust. So, if you follow these steps and you don’t have nicely browned scallops, go back to the fish store and complain about the quality of their wares.
If they give you a hard time, tell them to call me. I’ll give them an earful.
Any other burning questions out there? If so, jot them below and I’ll see if I can help you out.
Opening a restaurant is almost always a leap of faith braced by groundless courage. It’s a risky business at best so when I read this article in the Independent about an all-cheese restaurant struggling in London, England, I felt sorry for the owners but also kind of mad at them for being so foolish as to put all their curds in one cheese keeper. After all, if opening a restaurant is high risk, then opening a sit-down restaurant devoted to one food group is really risky (fast food restaurants which sell all plastic food are another matter entirely).
It’s a misnomer that everyone likes cheese. A frequent commenter on this blog is a cheese naysayer, for instance (you know who you are Adrian).
Besides folks like this reader, there are loads of other people with lactose intolerances and a few others with dairy allergies so it seems like the kind of restaurant that should only have small tables since you’d likely never invite a huge group of mixed tastes to such a place.
That said, for cheese lovers like me, L’Art du Fromage restaurant sounds like heaven. I love to cook with cheese! As frequent visitors here know, I’m a devoted homemade mac ‘n’ cheese lover. However, this time of year I usually leave the noodles in the pantry and use cheese to top salads instead.
How do you use cheese most often in spring and summer? Do you eat cheese on its own as a snack or do you incorporate it into recipes more often? Or, are you like Adrian and shun cheese?
The most innovative new chocolate product is not a bar or a dessert but a biodegradable, cartridge-shaped tube that contains eight hits of chocolate flavoured air and costs about $2.50 (heck, I could have a caviar cube for that!). It’s also available in a coffee version that delivers the equivalent amount of caffeine to an espresso shot (a vital addition to the food product world since, you know, getting coffee breath is such a difficult achievement).
No, seriously. This product really exists. I wish I could tell you that this is an April Fool’s Day joke. But, alas, the sad truth is that we have become a society where 60,000 plus units of the Le Whif chocolate and coffee inhalers have sold in the last year.
Although the inventor David Edwards claims the inspiration for this product line came from the world of molecular gastronomy, I think he got the idea from Tina Fey who, several seasons ago, made fun of the style-conscious New York party scene by featuring boxes of flavoured oxygen on her show 30 Rock.
Regardless of the product’s origin, I wonder who these 60,000 people are who have purchased Le Whif? Dieters? Curious foodies? Style conscious New York partiers?
What do you think – is this a step forward for coffee and chocolate lovers or just a silly fad?
