22 January 2012 by pat.

I was invited to a dinner party at Tony’s, and volunteered to prepare a dish. The theme for the evening was “heavy garlic,” and we talked about what movie to watch… I volunteered to bring my DVD of Ratatouille, and then decided that a garlicky ratatouille would be a good fit for me to bring.

Next, I researched a ratatouille recipe that looks like the one in the movie. The original, as can be seen on some of the DVD extras, is by Thomas Keller. It’s a little involved. I found a simplified version over at Smitten Kitchen’s blog that looked tasty, so my next step was to hit the St. Lawrence Market to buy ingredients. Yes, I know that this is absolutely the wrong time of year to be making ratatouille, that the vegetables all are being flown in from South America. Most of the time I do cook local. Every once in a while, I go exotic.

I wasn’t quite sure of the quantities to get (hadn’t decided what I was going to bake it in!), so I did end up with one yellow squash and one zucchini unused, and I have a bunch of slices of everything in a ziplock bag in my fridge that are going to become more ratatouille today.

Wash, chop the ends, and then run all the veggie tubes through the mandoline. Put each vegetable in a separate bowl, and then make short stacks and arrange them on top of the tomato purée.

Put it in the oven — this was in for about an hour, mostly at 350F.

Delicious dinner with friends. Tony made a Thai peanut chicken and salad (and guacamole, which we had earlier) and Bill and Claire brought a fruit salad and fruit pie.

Posted in Food - farmers' market, Food, recipes, Food | 2 Comments »

22 October 2011 by pat.

Chef Challet is demonstrating the use and versatility of cocoa butter that has been reduced to a particle size. He recommends using it instead of the standard fats we use to cook foods in the kitchen. It has a high flash point: 200C. What’s different about it?

You don’t put it in the frying pan to melt, come up to temperature, and then add the food to be cooked. You  sprinkle it on the raw food (or coat the food, like you would with bread crumbs) and then put the food directly in the frying pan. It sears, it preserves flavour, it reduces cooking time, and is cholesterol free.

Sounds interesting, and these mushrooms tasted very good.

Chef Challet is coming to Leslieville in the very near future — the old Leonidas chocolate store (gone, alas) is his new venue. He’ll be selling bread items (pain au chocolat, croissants, bread) and prepared food items (boeuf bourguignon, lobster bisque, for example). He expects to be open in about a month — I’ll hit the store when it’s open and post about it!

Posted in Kitchen and table, Food, recipes, Food | 2 Comments »

11 October 2011 by pat.

I can’t remember buying molasses. We used to have it when I was growing up — it’s integral to Boston baked beans! Every once in a while, I used to spread some on toast in the morning — I think Mom told me about it, that a Newfoundlander she knew used to do that for breakfast, so I tried it one day. I liked it. But I forgot about it for a long time… and it’s just sugar, right?

Umm, no, it’s not.

I bought some (unsulfured) blackstrap molasses on the weekend at the Bulk barn to use as an ingredient in mahogany lacquered squab, which I made myself for Thanksgiving dinner. Here’s a shot:

The glaze is equal parts molasses and balsamic vinegar (don’t use the expensive stuff, just the moderately priced — you want some of the acid). Plus spices. I applied it before putting the squab in the oven, and brushed it with what collected in the pan twice while it was roasting.

I tasted the dribbles of molasses, and really enjoyed the flavour. Almost smoky. A tinge of bitterness. Rich.

I’ve been thinking of other things to do with it (plus have done a couple). A cracker with peanut butter and a little drizzle of molasses: that’s a good thing.

Cocktail? Hmm, maybe. Especially after reading this article about the nutrients (mostly minerals) that molasses provides. Although it might just taste like dark rum.

How about burnishing roasting vegetables, like onions and squash?

One tablespoon of blackstrap molasses is about 42 calories. One tablespoon of standard table sugar is 45, so they’re close to the same calorically, but molasses doesn’t taste as sweet.

Definitely an ingredient to investigate. Molasses: it’s not just for beans!

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4 September 2011 by pat.

Here in Leslieville, some of us celebrate Saturdays by going over to Stratenger’s at 2pm and having a few drinks. We’re usually done by 4:30, and then go on our way for the rest of the weekend and rest of the week.

Nancy (on twitter: @Nancy178) started off the summer season by hosting Patio Club on her amaaaaazing balcony. I decided to finish off the summer with Patio Club on my back deck on the Labour Day long weekend.

I prepped by sauteeing three types of mushrooms (oyster, beech, and Nebrodinis) and simmering a San Marzano tomato sauce. I pitted a variety of olives. I grated mozzarella. I oven-dried some yellow cherry tomatoes, and preserved them in olive oil.

I bought a bunch of jars of interesting things at Domino’s at the St. Lawrence Market: some black olive paste, some basil pesto, spicy eggplant strips (love them!), artichoke hearts, and upstairs at Scheffler’s, some pearl bocconcini, and a hot and mild sausage.

I also bought some 00 wheat flour from Domino’s, and made pizza dough. Warning: test your yeast first, hmmm? I didn’t, and… it didn’t, either. Flat icky mess.

First thing on Saturday morning I was over at Loblaw’s, buying their frozen pasta dough. Thawing it. Then cutting each ball into 4, and rolling, stretching, pleading with it to stop creeping back into a ball. Resting it, fighting with it some more. Then popping it in the oven long enough to bake.

I discovered with the first two that they blew up just like pita bread (heck what’s the difference?). I needed to be doing something like blind baking. It actually didn’t occur to me to put beans on the rounds (I just thought of that now: that’s something I’ve known for a long time). I did puncture the rest of the rounds with a fork multiple times. They still rose a bit, but not to full ballooned-pita-ness, if you’ve ever seen them in the oven.

Guests arrived,  and we started drinking! We also had some nibblies: I bought some strange things from the snack section at Domino’s: beet chips (they were great) dried/fried peas in pods (meh) and dried/fried okra (hmm. kinda meh). And some Fritos. Oh. And a contribution from @BeeRich33 — some Black Diamond cheddar that he cold smoked in sticks. I cut into cubes, they all disappeared. Everybody loved Rich’s cheese.

Then we made pizzas. Since everything had been precooked, it was really only a matter of choosing which ingredients to put on the ‘za, and put it on the barbecue for long enough to melt the cheese (and, one hopes, not burn the bottom of the pizza bread too badly).

We finished off with some Ontario peaches that @pronosher brought: I cut them in half, brushed olive oil on the cut side, then face down on the grill until they had good grill marks. Turned them flat-side-up, sprinkled a bit of Demarara sugar, broiled a bit longer, then let cool a bit. That was dessert!

All in all, a pretty good Patio Club. The last people left after dark, so I’ll take that as a mark of satisfaction

Posted in Food, dining out, Food, recipes, Food, processed, Food | No Comments »

21 August 2011 by pat.

As posted waaaay back, Sandy won a dinner by Matt Kantor of Little Kitchen and (now) Ghost Chef fame. One of the early dishes was a creamy sunchoke soup, garnished with crispy fried bacon lardons and shiitake mushrooms. I was fortunate to get the recipe after the dinner!

This past winter, I subscribed to KEG’s winter CSA (look back to the winter months to see my pictures). I had more sunchokes/Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes and squash and celeriac than I could comfortably eat in the time frame, so I made a lot of purées and froze them in ziplock bags (sandwich size).

I was having Sandy and Damir and Betty for dinner yesterday, and decided that I’d do a variant on Matt’s soup, so I took some bags of my purées of sunchoke and potato out of the freezer, and came as close to replicating the soup as I could, given I was starting with purées rather than whole raw veggies.

That’s when I started making a few changes.

I put the soup in the fridge, and served it cold.

To garnish the soup, I used a lotus root I had bought on Friday over at T&T Supermarket (the one on Cherry Street).  I used my mandoline to cut uniform slices across the root (and get those gorgeous circles with the tuber holes). Then I dried off (on paper towel) the slices, and deep fried them in some olive oil in my smallest frying pan. You have to watch them: there’s a lot of water in them, so most of the cooking time is used with just getting the water out of them (they shrink a lot). After the water is out of them, the temperature rises, and they start to carmelize and turn crispy. That’s when to pull them out of the frying pan and drain them.

Hey, Matt! Thanks for the recipe: it works well cold with lotus root garnish!

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4 April 2011 by pat.

And here it is, fresh from the oven!

I could have/should have taken the lid off the pot after about 45mins of cooking so some of the liquid would evaporate. Oh well.

Here’s an extreme close-up of it on my plate, topped with a piece of crisped-up skin from the goose.

I like the addition of a tomato and a leeeetle bit of summer sausage: they help to mitigate the richness of the dish and provide some interesting flavours (the first cassoulet I made was oh! so bland).

Posted in Food, recipes, Food | 1 Comment »

3 April 2011 by pat.

I’ve tried following recipes, gone by their recommendations, but now it’s time to do it my own way.

This time, I’ve used white kidney beans instead of Navy beans or Great Northerns (a type of navy bean often recommended for this dish). I’m not a big fan of the flavour of navy beans: tastes too much like Boston baked beans to me, even though there’s no molasses or anything else that would make it remind me — it’s just the taste of the beans. White kidney beans are cannellini beans — what you get if you get a white bean dip in Italy.

I like that flavour a lot more.

Making a cassoulet takes time, and there are a couple of shortcuts you can take (like buying canned beans) but I decided to do the whole thing from scratch, and only cheated with the broth.

I soaked the beans. Then I cooked them for an hour and 20 minutes with two chicken bouillon cubes, a couple of bay leaves, some parsley, summer savory, ground pepper, onion, garlic, and celery.

Was too late by the time that was done to make the cassoulet, so I drained the beans, mostly, and put them in the fridge overnight.

Today I assembled the casserole. Here are the ingredients:

The cooked beans, a hunk of oven-roasted smoked bacon from Witteveen’s, a drumstick and two breasts from a goose I roasted last fall (I stripped the skin off the breasts and sliced them). One half-centimeter thick slice of summer sausage, cut into cubes. Great big organic tomato. I was going to add additional garlic, but thought I’d better not, since I’m going to a wine tasting tomorrow night!

I didn’t use all the bacon. I took a 7-cm hunk off the end, and put slices of the bacon along the bottom of the ceramic casserole. Then put in the drumstick.

Chopped the tomato, added it to the beans, as well as the summer sausage. Put a layer of the bean mixture, then slices of goose breast, then the rest of the bean mixture. Poured about 6oz of white wine over the top, put it in the oven at 325 (then reduced to 275), and left it for a couple of hours.

I’m about to go back home and check it. May crisp up some of the goose skin to add to the top, or use some panko crumbs. See what I feel like.

Cheers!

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18 March 2011 by pat.

No, I’m not following Roman Catholic rules for “meatless” Fridays that led countless millions of people to eat fish on Fridays. It’s just convenient to remember to go to Hooked on Friday!

I went today, (as soon as I walked in, the fresh smell made me hungry, even though I’d just eaten lunch) and surveyed their fish board:

Then I looked at what the food looked like in the cases.

First up: different types of salmon, sable fish, halibut, and sturgeon. Hmm. Sturgeon. Interesting. I’m going to have to look up info on that one before I buy it: what do I do with it, etc.

Mmmm. Mussels, clams, and oysters. Most memorable clams I’ve had since I was 9 out on the Barachois in Newfoundland were in Rome this past fall. That’s a possibility.

Love the way they showcased a half-dozen oysters.

Lots of goodies here. Some cooked lobster tails and lobsters, crab meat,  more gorgeous trout from the same farm as I got the rainbow trout from last week…

Mmm. More gorgeous fish. Wild char. Some white fish, pickerel, trout.

I can’t believe it! I didn’t take a picture of the enormous scallops! Oh well.

I finally decided to get a pound of manilla clams, 3 whopping big scallops again, and a cooked-and-ready-to-eat lobster tail, just sitting there, crying to be munched. Haven’t yet decided which to eat tonight!

Epilogue

Went with the clams. In some olive oil and butter, sautéed 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 an onion, 1 stalk celery. When translucent, added about 10oz of Sauvignon Blanc. Bring to a boil, add a good fistful of fresh parsley, chopped. Add the clams. Cover, shake to get as even a level on them as possible. I gave them 4 minutes (I had 1 lb.).

Serve. Take excess sauce and boil it to half the volume, and sop that up with day old baguette. Oh yes.

Posted in Food, recipes, Food, SOLE food | 1 Comment »

8 February 2011 by pat.

It’s pretty much a rule that if you’re going to test out a recipe for the first time, you make it at least once before you serve it to guests.

I broke that rule on Sunday.

I had Sandy, Damir, and Betty over for dinner. I was testing recipes for Natalie MacLean’s new book that will be coming out this fall.

Wherever possible, I bought local organic. When local organic wasn’t available, I bought local. When it wasn’t available, I bought organic (this great hierarchy of food choice courtesy of David Suzuki).

We started with martinis and some white kidney bean purée I made by cooking up the beans and using the stick blender on them and a little bit of the water they cooked in, and added a little drizzle of white truffle oil and a pinch of salt, and served it with triangles of whole wheat pita.

I made the martinis a little different by including a wee drip of VSOP brandy that had been drowning green peppercorns since December 9th, and popped a few peppercorns into the bottom of each glass.

From then, it was food & wine.First stop: oyster chowder. This was a really tasty recipe. Served it up with Altana Di Vico pinot grigio 2009.

Next recipe had me out in the kitchen cooking for a while; fortunately, I had prepared the green pea & thyme puree (shelled the peas myself!) and the semolina gnocchi in advance. So I roasted up some young pigeon (squab) breasts and a partridge, too, because Whitehouse meats only had 3 pigeons left! It’s quite expensive there: I’m going to take a look this week when I’m at T&T with Betty to see if they have pigeon, and see where it’s from and what the cost is. It’s a lovely meat: dark, juicy, flavourful, but not strong and gamey or liver-tasting, which had worried some.

We drank Betty’s Peppoli Chianti Classico from 2008 with this dish. I almost forgot to take a picture, which is why there are fork marks in my pea purée!

On to the fourth course! Lamb croquettes. Definitely the most labour-intensive dish (had to prepare it over 3 days… I could have done it in one day, but it would have had me worrying about coordination with other dishes).

Awesome. Totally AWESOME. Crunchy on the outside, rich lamb flavour and melt-in-your-mouth inside. Very rich. The recipe suggests serving it with an endive salad, so I made a very simple salad of endive leaves, ruby-red grapefruit slices, some very old balsamic vinegar that almost wouldn’t pour any more because it was so thick, and a little olive oil. Just something simple and a little acidic to balance the richness.

And with that, we had an awesome wine from Sandy and Damir: K1 by Geoff Hardy, a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Adelaide Hills. It was a numbered bottle, #3910 of only 5000. It did a slow, smouldering tango with the lamb: they were a perfect pair.

After that, a little break (we needed a break, really) and then some panna cotta for dessert (blackberries from the St. Lawrence farmers’ market that I bought and froze, raspberry syrup from the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair made by Lennox Farms in Shelburne) with another half-bottle of Betty’s Chianti.

All in all, dinner was a success. Definitely didn’t throw any food out: everyone cleaned their plates. Only complaint was that I spent too much time in the kitchen and not enough with my guests!

Next time, they’ll be served a big plate of pasta and a salad, and I’ll spend all my time with them. Or I’ll barbecue something (it had better be warmer out).

This coming Sunday I’m cooking for Steve & Rob & Joanne — more new recipes!

Posted in Photography - documentary, Food, recipes, Food, grown, Food, SOLE food | 1 Comment »

20 January 2011 by pat.

Lunch time came around. I opened the fridge (lo and behold! wondrous variety of veggies from KEG). Figured it was time to eat up some things, like about 2oz of bacon that were there.

I have containers of pasta and beans pre-cooked in the fridge: it makes it easier to throw something together for lunch.

Here’s what I pulled out today:

From top left, clockwise around the little bowl with pepper flakes:

• fusilli pasta (coloured with vegetables),
• bacon,
• garlic (it was a huge clove),
• black kale,
• leek,
• 2 chopped anchovy fillets,
• and pine nuts.

And here’s what it looked like after cooked in the cast iron skillet in a little olive oil.

I like the drama the kale added!

Posted in Photography - documentary, Food - farmers' market, Food, recipes, Food | 2 Comments »

12 January 2011 by pat.

It’s winter, and beans are something I consider a winter food. If you look back through this blog, you’ll see that’s when I make massive pots of pea soup, experiment with cassoulet recipes, and so on.

The one thing I disliked about the cassoulets I made was the use of Great Northern beans. These are the beans that give Boston baked beans its flavour, and it’s a flavour I associate so strongly with that dish that, to me, cassoulet made with them tasted… American, and not French. OK, that’s a little weird, but that’s the way I’m wired.

I’d been trying to find cannellini beans, and hadn’t had any luck finding any dry ones (found canned ones). Then someone on Twitter enlightened me: they’re usually called white kidney beans over here. Ah. Back to the St. Lawrence market for dry white kidney beans. And Romano beans. Just for the heck of it. To compare the flavour of the two. I got the kidney beans at Rube’s and the Romanos at Domino’s. Prices are lower at Domino’s.

Last night I put 8oz (weight) of each on to soak. This morning I drained them and put them in fresh water with a chicken bouillon cube, and boiled until soft. I could have stopped the process earlier than I did if I wanted firm beans; they were starting to split and peel when I drained them.

The shrivelled skins of the kidney beans rehydrated while being boiled, and were very thin, and almost nonexistent. The skins on the romano beans are thicker, but not obnoxiously so. I tried some of them plain. The white beans have a very mild flavour, and I’ll use them in dishes where I want one (or several) of the other ingredients to dominate. The romanos (on the right) have a stronger flavour, slightly meatier tasting. Not as strong a flavour as, say, chickpeas, but a very pleasant taste that I’m immediately imagining with bacon and mushrooms.

Next, I drizzled a little white truffle oil on some of each. I love white truffle oil. It was most apparent in the white beans, although still strongly present in the Romanos.  I think that if I want to recreate the white bean ’soufflée’ that Sandy and Betty and I had in Anghiari, I’ll use the white kidney beans.

I put the rest of the cooked beans in the fridge in sealed tubs, so I can add a handful to dishes as I cook.

Tonight for dinner I mixed some of the romanos with some frozen rapini, added some chicken stock, and heated it up, then added a boneless skinless chicken thigh on top. It was a good combination.

I suppose Rich set me off this week by asking what sort of slow cooker recipes I’d make with beans. I responded:

You can go the Moroccan route, in terms of spices; use strong cuts of meat, like goat, older lamb, stewing hen (T&T sells those) and treat the slow cooker like a tagine. Appropriate beans: chick peas, fava beans.

Or pea soup — I made a huge batch of that in my slow cooker last week. I used a smoked turkey thigh (the brand is Brandt) — bought it at the cheap food place across Leslie from Loblaw’s — Loblaw’s didn’t have any, got a song-and-dance from them about how they might be stocking them in the future, yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s lower fat than smoked ham hocks.

Venison’s really good in the slow cooker with lots of members of the allium family and other root veggies: toss a few juniper berries in the pot along with a splash of red wine, bay leaf, salt & pepper.

 Lentils scream Indian food to me, so I’ve got plans to use them along with tomatoes, curry spices, onion and carrots and chicken thighs.

 I made onion soup a few weeks ago. I didn’t chop the onions, just ran them all through the mandoline, so they were like thin noodles. Made for messy eating. I’ll chop them next time.

Stewed oxtail would be good — it’s usually made with potatoes, but a mild-flavoured bean would be a good substitute, or a whole-grain rice and a handful of red kidney beans. You might want to spice it up like a Jamaican roti.

There’s a few ideas!

I don’t put a lot of greens into my crock pot — I cook them separately so they’re not stewed and drained of color (which happens after a long time).

Caveat

Wikipedia describes why some types of beans need to be soaked for at least 5 hours and boiled at 100C for 10 minutes before cooking in a slow cooker: they contain a toxic compound, phytohaemagglutinin, that can be leached out. It can also be boiled out, but if you’ve got a slow cooker on a low setting, the temperature might not be high enough to degrade the toxin (and may make it stronger).

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7 January 2011 by pat.

I’ve had many martinis.

Pure ones,

variants,

fancy-schmancy ones that had nothing to do, really with the original concept.

Tonight I had one that was based on the original, but with a change. And in my mind, the switch of the third ingredient from olives turns this into a truly Canadian martini.

Here’s the recipe:

•  whisper of vermouth
• 1.75 oz of gin — I used Tanqueray, your choice may vary: wouldn’t recommend something like Hendricks, which should be enjoyed solus.
• 3 spruce buds: mine were from Forbes, who preserves them and sells them in Ontario.

Posted in Food, recipes, Food | 2 Comments »

2 January 2011 by pat.

Split pea soup was something that appeared in early January on the table when I was growing up. Made from the ham bone and a few chopped slices from Christmas dinner, my mother put it in a pot and boiled it and added yellow split peas to it, along with a few other ingredients. She switched to using smoked ham hocks at some point.

I never asked her for her recipe! I should do that some time, and compare with mine.

I started by using smoked ham hocks, but decided to switch to something leaner when I saw it in the deli case at the grocery store: smoked turkey drumsticks. That later morphed into using smoked turkey thigh instead — less like petrified dinosaur!

Today’s pea soup is the first time I’ve attempted making it in the slow cooker. I think it’s a perfect food for the machine, because nothing is more heartbreaking than burning the bottom of the pot over the burner because I forgot to stir it.

Today’s soup has the following ingredients:

• 1 smoked turkey thigh, approximately 1kg, torn into 3 pieces
• 900 grams of split yellow peas
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 cup of chopped carrots
• 1 big chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 pinch coarse sea salt (be gentle with the salt: the smoked meat is salty)
• half-dozen whole peppercorns
• 30 grinds of my pepper mill
• about a dozen crimini mushrooms that were getting a bit too shrivelled to use in a salad, chopped fine. (not something I usually do, but what the heck, I like the umami that mushrooms contribute to a dish).
• 2-1/2 litres of water.

I put all the ingredients in the largest insert for my slow cooker at 3, with the peas at bottom, followed by the meat, followed by everything else, then poured the water over the top.

At 5:30, 2:30 hours after beginning, I pulled the three pieces of meat out and cubed it, and returned the meat and the bone to the pot. Took a sip of the liquid: it tastes like smoky turkey, so that’s a good thing.

By 8pm, it should be ready to eat.

I stole the basics from this recipe, and then faked it my own way (and I was out of celery).

Posted in Food, recipes, Food | 3 Comments »

12 September 2010 by pat.

Last weekend I bought peaches to make the peach tart described earlier in the blog. I had two peaches left over, which I left in the paper bag. They continued to ripen, and were flavourfully fragrant and quite soft when I remembered to check on them today!

Trying to figure out what to do with them, I decided I wanted them to be part of a main dish, not a dessert (mostly because I seldom eat desserts). Alas, I couldn’t do a proper Beyond-the-Fringe Frog a la peche, so I had to come up with something else.

I decided to make a curry: curries work well with fruit (think: dried apricot, or raisins, or currants) so I thought that fresh peach would work well.

I went over to Meating on Queen (local organic butcher), and bought three magnificent bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs.

I brought them home, and browned them in a little bit of olive oil in my cast iron skillet. Then removed them to a bowl while I sautéed some chopped onions, and then added two chopped (freestone, peeled) peaches to them. Sautéed for a while longer, then added a few tablespoons of curry powder, mixed well, and added some white wine to make a sauce. Cooked it for a bit, then put the chicken back in the skillet, put a lid on it all, and transferred to the oven at 350F.

After a half hour, I added some roasted cashews to the mix, and put some brown basmati rice on to cook.

45 minutes later, dinner’s ready to eat. Here’s the skillet as it came out of the oven.

Had a piece of chicken with curried peaches and cashews  on some basmati rice. The sauce thickened up very nicely. For additional heat, I had a bottle of Himalaya Gourmet Hot Carrot Pickle in the fridge that I bought at the Cabbagetown festival.

That, and a green salad, made for a very enjoyable dinner.

And I have leftover chicken for other meals.

Posted in Food - farmers' market, Food, recipes, Food, SOLE food | No Comments »

10 September 2010 by pat.

Working at home means, frequently, making lunch at home (unless escaping for a spot to meet with others due to cabin fever!).

Today, while rummaging through the fridge, I found a few ingredients that should be eaten up before going bad. They included:

• Oven-roasted side bacon from Witteveen’s at the St. Lawrence Market
• Polenta
• One white mushroom
• Frozen spinach

First into the pan went the bacon, followed shortly by the polenta, and then the chopped mushroom. I microwaved the spinach on the plate.

What was missing? I could have used a clove of garlic and a cipolinni onion in the frying pan, added just after the bacon and before the polenta. Maybe a few (rinsed) salt-cured capers, some chopped sun-dried tomato that had been preserved in oil, to bump up the color quotient, and add a little bit of bite.

I should have noted the name of the mushrooms when I purchased them at Phil’s Place at the St. Lawrence Market. They’re delicious: I’ve bought them there before. Big meaty mushrooms that do well in a frying pan, absorb the flavours of things they’re cooked with, but don’t have a very strong flavour of their own. Here’s a picture of two of them. The plate they’re sitting on is 6″x6″, so you can see that they’re a good size. If I recall, they were $9.99/lb.

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