Sugar Moon Farm Part Two
Posted by Renee | Filed under Events
The boys and I at Sugarmoon Farm in Spring 2009.
Just a quick note about my upcoming dinner at Sugar Moon Farm Saturday, September 25th. This should be a great evening and I hope to see many of you out there! Reservations can be made by calling the farm at 1-866-81-maple or email info@sugarmoon.ca .
Menu
Salad Of Roasted Fall Squash And Old Growler Cheese With A Maple-Barberry Vinaigrette
***
Jerusalem Artichoke Soup With Maple Creme
***
Nova Scotia”Porchetta” With Crushed New Potatoes & Maple Roasted Heirloom Carrots
***
Maple Roasted Valley Pears With Fox Hill Quark Cheese
Tags: Chefs Night, Sugar Moon Farm
Sunday Night Dinner #1: Fig & Prosciutto Salad
Posted by Renee | Filed under Sunday Night Dinners
Fig & Prosciutto Salad
So, I’ve been trying to think about something that I could write about on a regular basis. I had a few thoughts about Top Ten Lists. I like it the idea, but I only have so many top tens in my life. I could talk about my kids, but who wants to hear about Zoe’s antics and Philippe’s poopy diapers. How about my Sunday nights? My Sunday night are sacred. It’s the one night out of the week that I usually try and make an effort to make a nice meal for the man in my life. So, without further ado, here it is, my first of hopefully many Sunday Night Dinner posts!
This particular Sunday was no different from any other; the were kids acting like crack heads, Doug was wiped from being out late the night before, and me, well, I was just my usual crab nebula-ish self. The dinner on this particular evening was looming overhead. What should I make? What do we have to use? Doug had shown up with a flat of figs for me on Saturday, and I had some prosciutto in the fridge that was screaming to be used. Was a salad in order? Perhaps. We made a quick trip to Pete’s Frootique, and I scored on a big piece of Bleu d’Auvergne cheese that was on sale, as well as a bottle of white wine vinegar that I needed to replace my last one. There were the dregs of a container of walnuts and in the freezer and some pears and greens that I picked up at the market the day before.
The answer was clear. A salad of figs, grilled prosciutto, julienned pears, Bleu d’Auvergne, walnuts and market greens was on the menu. A simple vinaigrette of honey, olive oil and the white wine vinegar rounded out the dish. I paired the salad with some grilled honey apricot bread and we had a winner of a dinner. Doug was as happy as a pig in shit, and I had manged to make something out of almost nothing.
(Starting with this post, I plan to have my weekly Sunday Night Dinners posted every Monday morning. If you have any suggestion as to what I should make, feel free to send me a note.)
Tags: cheese, pears, Pete's Frootique, prosciutto, salad, Sunday Night Dinners
My Big Day Downtown
Posted by Renee | Filed under Events
Downtown Baby!
It is not very often that I get offered money to use for fun and frivolity. I was recently asked to spend $100 in downtown Halifax by the Downtown Halifax Business Commission; a task I thought would be a cake walk, but after agonizing over how and on what I would spend my big bucks, I realized that there is much more to our fair city than what meets the eye. But after putting some thought into what I would do, I decided to show you the places that are my favorites, and that put a smile on my face.
Having two kids under the age of two, and being a busy bee, I decided to stretch my big day into two; first a day of “adult” activities, and then a second day involving my brood. Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: Big Day Dowtown, Bishop's Cellar, Boulangerie La Vendeenne, Dowtown halifax Business Commission, Five Fishermen Restaurant, Fox Hill Cheese, Halifax Farmers Market, Riverview Herbs, Ted Hutten Family Farms, The Carelton
Clam Chaos at the IncrEDIBLE Picnic
Posted by Renee | Filed under Events, Recipes
Last Saturday I decided to participate in the Select Nova Scotia IncrEDIBLE Picnic at Alderney Landing in Dartmouth. I concocted a little dish for the event called “Clam Chaos”. Some of you may have been a part of the lucky few one who got to try it (I sold out after 3 hours). Many had asked for a recipe, so here it is!
Clam Chaos
- 5lbs clams; steamed and shucked and kept in their cooking liquid until needed
- 1 lbs snow peas; julienned
- 1 apple; julienned
- 10 radishes; thinly sliced
- 1 lbs potatoes; thinly sliced and cooked
- 1/2 cup basil; chiffonade
- 1/2 cup parley; chopped
- 1/4 cup walnut oil
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 white wine vinegar
- salt & pepper
- truffle oil; optional
Mix all the ingredients together and add the drained clams at the end. This recipe makes enough for 4 people as a main course.
Tip: Use a mandolin or Benriner to prepare the thinkly sliced or julienned ingredients. As you may already know a Benriner is one of my favourite kitchen tools. Click here for my 10 Kitchen Tools I Can’t Live Without.
Tags: clams, Dartmouth, seafood, Select Nova Scotia
Happy Birthday & Birthing Jean!
Posted by Renee | Filed under Events, Recipes
Simple, seasonal, sweet!
It seems that my sis in law and I have a similar pattern when it comes to having babies; they’re always close together! Jean just gave birth to bébé #2, Oscar, and also celebrated her own birthday a few days later. To celebrate her “birthing-day” and her birthday, we had Jean and her better half, Jake, over for a casual dinner. My one promise for the evening was that I would prepare a decadent dessert. Sure – I can cook, but when it comes to baking or pastries, pardon my language, I suck ass! So, in an attempt to impress the birthday girl while keeping it dead easy for me, I concocted a tart of fresh valley peaches and blueberries with a lemon pastry cream. How easy was this dessert you ask? So simple that even brand new baby Oscar could have made it. Store bought puff pastry and my simple pastry cream recipe were all that was needed. I topped it off with seasonal fruit, some fresh mint from the backyard and I was done. Take it from me, the lady who can’t bake; if I can make it look and taste pretty, then so can you!
Pastry Cream
1 C. milk
1/2 C. sugar
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 egg yolks
1/2 vanilla bean
Mix all the ingredients together in a saucepan and cook over low heat while stirring. Cook for 3-5 minutes until mixture thickens and can cover the back of a spoon. Set aside and let cool. You can flavour your pastry cream in any number of ways. Try adding fresh fruit, lemon zest or event a few shots of rum.
Tags: blueberry, dessert, peach
My Love Affair with Les Fougères
Posted by Renee | Filed under Favorites
The famous Salade Fougères.
I am no food reviewer, and its not often that I write about restaurants or the meals I’ve eaten in them, but when it comes to Les Fougerès, I gotta give them a shout out!
Charlie & Jennifer Part are the brains behind this operation that is found deep in the Gatineau Hills (Chelsea to be exact). Originally, they owned a little “boite” in Toronto called Loons, but after babies and the allure of a simpler life, they moved their brood to Chelsea where Jennifer’s parents and sister happen to live. As a result, Les Fougères was born in the remnants of an old gas station. To be perfectly honest, my opinion of these two is biased, as I was once their sous chef (yep,that is me on page 142 of their cookbook!), but in the past thirteen years I have never had a bad experience. Yes, it is true that I got married there, and the ten course meal that we ate will go down in history as the best wedding meal EVER, but I won’t let that sway my opinion. Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: Les Fougeres, restaurant
Les Fraises Fantastiques!
Posted by Renee | Filed under Favorites
A Bowl of Summer
With summer upon us, one of my favorite things to eat is strawberries. There are different types of these little gems that you can find, and now you can have them freshly picked all summer! Here are a few reasons why they hold a special place on my plate.
Memory number one; my dad taking me to a u-pick every Canada Day! We would wake up at the crack of dawn and venture to the nearest u-pick in the Pontiac. Baskets in hand, we would go row by row, grabbing the biggest and juiciest strawberries that we could find. Three quarters of these berries made it into my mouth before the basket, and I would shyly tell the attendant that I never ate any! Stains on the front of my shirt told a different story! Home we would go, many baskets in tow, and sit on our front lawn to watch the annual parade. Best way to eat these red berries; heavy cream poured on top with a sprinkling of sugar! Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: strawberry
Cookie Monster
Posted by Renee | Filed under Favorites, Recipes
Zoe the Cookie Monster
My mother often tells the story of my first cooking venture. When I was two, my mother had me propped up on a chair in our kitchen, so I could help her make oatmeal cookies. I was so enthusiastic about this, that when her back was turned I ate a whole cup of flour! Yep, down the hatch it went. Needless to say, it freaked my mother (and I am sure myself) out. As most of you know, flour and saliva basically turn into homemade “glue” – so I essentially glued my mouth shut. After some panic and cleaning my gooey mouth out, we proceeded to make the best oatmeal cookies ever.
I recently started my second maternity leave, and am now home with a 20 month old and a 5 week old. With that being said, I get cabin fever quite fairly regularly, especially on those typical Nova Scotian rainy days. On the past rainy day, I decided to continue the Lavallée tradition and make cookies with my lil’ cookie monster. I must admit that it was a very messy venture, but Zoe clearly enjoyed herself and luckily enough, she did not follow in her Momma’s footsteps by eating a cup of flour. The following recipe is the same one that I made with my mother many moons ago. Read the rest of this entry…
Crunchy Salad
Posted by Renee | Filed under Everyday, Recipes
This salad isn't only crunchy - it gluten and dairy free.
I recently had a request for a gluten and dairy free recipe. As most of you know by now, bread and cheese are two of my favourite things, but felt that I should expand my horizons and come up with a dish that would accommodate people that have allergies or aversions to these. So, with a few cookbooks in hand, I did some research and I came up with this fresh and simple dish that I haphazardly named “crunchy salad”. Once you make it and try it out, you’ll understand why I’ve called it this. As always, this recipe is intended to be a guide for those of you at home. So take it and run with it! Who knows, yours may end up being a whole lot better than mine! Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: dairy free, recipe, salad, wheat free
The Grilled Pizza Epiphany
Posted by Renee | Filed under Everyday, Recipes
Grilled Goodness.
While scanning Twitter the other day, I came across a tweet by Smitten Kitchen about a “Shaved Asparagus Pizza“. Having just purchased 2lbs of fresh asparagus at the market that morning, and wanting to try out my pizza stone on our Weber grill, I decided to take the Smitten Kitchen recipe and use it as guideline.
First, I made a quick and easy pizza dough in my mixer and let it rise (see recipe below). Next came the building of the fire. Using a charcoal grill always requires some planning ahead and some carefully honed fire making skills! FYI….my fire making skills are outstanding! As my grill started to heat up, I put my stone on the grill and allowed it come up to temperature. This gave me a chance to prep the rest of my ingredients. A little shaved parmigiano-reggiano, mozzarella, some beautiful local asparagus from Caribou Island, basil from Riverview Herbs and a few crumbled sausages from Sweet Williams (grilled in advance) rounded out our ‘za toppings for the night. Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: asparagus, bbq, pizza, Riverview Herbs, Sweet Williams, Weber Grill
