Archive: ‘Mains’
Friday, January 13th, 2012
How is it that it’s January and here in Toronto we have no snow? And haven’t had any snow to speak of all winter? So weird. Not that I’m complaining – no snow makes my morning and evening commute so much less scary, I’ll totally take it. But I was hoping to go out snowboarding one of these weekends, so maybe it could snow just for that day…what do you think?
And you know what’s good after a long day of snowboarding? A super-easy, hearty meal that makes your house smell delicious would be just the thing! I love a good roast chicken – it’s one of our favourite meals. I’ve included my usual roast chicken recipe at the bottom because I know it by heart, but this one was equally as good and I love the built-in side dish of roasted potatoes and carrots. Add your favourite salad (or mine) to this, and it’s a lovely, fancy meal!
(more…)
Tags: carrots, chicken, French, potatoes
Posted in Comfort Food, French Fridays, Mains, Sides | 12 Comments »
Friday, December 30th, 2011
Where do I start? I could start with another anecdote about how I’m such a picky eater and that I’d never enjoyed lamb until the summer we went wine-touring with some friends in the Okanagan, British Columbia, and they’d brought along some lamb chops and lamb roasts from their own parents’ farm. They knew how to cook it to perfection and it was lovely and rich, not at all gamey and slightly nauseating the way I’d attempted to cook it myself, so I was completely won over.
(more…)
Tags: apples, braise, cardamom, curry, French, lamb, potatoes, stew
Posted in Comfort Food, French Fridays, Holiday, Mains | 2 Comments »
Friday, December 30th, 2011
In my frantic attempt to keep up with the food blog once I went back to work, I attempted two recipes in one evening. If memory serves, they were both relatively easy recipes and a huge hit with the darling husband. In fact, he just came in while I was working on this post and was all, “Oooh, is that the corn and bacon soup?! You can make that again! No really, YOU CAN MAKE THAT AGAIN!” He really appreciated the bacon on top…
(more…)
Tags: cheesy, corn, French, garlic, rice, spinach
Posted in Comfort Food, French Fridays, Mains, Sides, Soups | 1 Comment »
Friday, July 8th, 2011
Okay, you caught me. I missed another French Friday and deprived you of my version of the Chunky Beets and Icy Red Onions. I know. Shame on me. Here’s the really funny part – I DID make this dish. I took pictures of it all the way up to the part when I had to combine the onions, beets and dressing and then…I didn’t even eat it. Jon abhors beets and onions, so there was no way he was going near this one, so I thought I’d make it all for myself.
(more…)
Tags: fish, French, lemon, risotto, salmon, seafood
Posted in French Fridays, Mains, Sides | 6 Comments »
Friday, June 24th, 2011
Two weeks ago, I was supposed to make the Cola & Jam Spareribs, but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to. I’m not, however, one to give up on a rib recipe, especially not in the summer and especially when they sounded so friggin’ good!
(more…)
Tags: French, mozzarella, pork, ribs, strawberry, tomato
Posted in French Fridays, Mains, Salad | 13 Comments »
Sunday, June 5th, 2011
I’ve never tried pot-au-feu before, but again with the egg – those French! I was excited – now this is a vegetable soup I can get behind!
(more…)
Tags: asparagus, carrots, eggs, French, leeks, mushroom, potatoes, spinach, vegetables
Posted in French Fridays, Mains, Soups | 3 Comments »
Sunday, June 5th, 2011
I searched high and low for cardamom pods for this recipe and came up empty. I’ll have to find an Indian spice store in the future for it, I think- there was nothing in any grocery store I checked except ground cardamom, which I already had. I did love the flavour of the rice pilaf, even though I wasn’t sure how much cardamom to put in. I started with very little and added a bit more and a bit more…in the end, I could still barely taste it, but thought that was probably best.
(more…)
Tags: chicken, cinnamon, French, rice
Posted in French Fridays, Mains | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 20th, 2011
A few years ago, my sister and her (now) husband were living in Paris and Jon & I went to visit them for a lovely 10 days. I absolutely adore Paris – it was my second visit, but I remember even on my first visit how at home I felt once I’d hit the streets there, even though my French is not fluent despite studying it through most of my education. I’m such a terrible student.
One of the first places we ate at was actually a pizza restaurant and we each ordered our individual pizzas ‘avec un oeuf’. Yes, egg on your pizza – just a big ol’ cracked egg baked on top of all the toppings! What a revelation! And of course it was delicious! I tried once or twice to replicate it at home on my pizzas, but I can’t get it right – I don’t think my oven gets hot enough.
(more…)
Tags: bacon, eggs, pancetta, salty, spinach
Posted in French Fridays, Mains, Salad | 8 Comments »
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
When we lived in Calgary, it seemed like we went out for beer ‘n wings nearly every week. Which is a pretty bad habit to get into, let me tell ya. Thanks to Cook’s Illustrated‘s Buffalo Wing recipe, I discovered I could make pretty awesome wings myself using my KitchenAid enamel-coated cast iron pots and a deep-fry thermometer instead of a deep-fryer, I realized it was a very dangerous skill to acquire, not the least of the danger being me vs. the smoke detector. (But for real, if you’re not on the America’s Test Kitchen bandwagon, you have to check it out – almost every recipe I’ve tried in Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country has turned out perfectly, and perfectly good!)
(more…)
Tags: chicken
Posted in Comfort Food, Mains | 1 Comment »
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
I have returned! I KNOW! You’ve missed me, haven’t you?
I had every intention of getting my mom to help me make Vanilla Éclairs while I was in California, but we were far too busy shopping (for baby things – not for me, but my little sister is pregnant! Whoo hoo!) and drinking huge margaritas while floating in the pool. So you can see how éclairs fell down the priority list. (And I didn’t get to go to the Coachella Music Festival, either. Boo!)
(more…)
Tags: beef, flambe!, French, pepper, steak
Posted in French Fridays, Mains | 15 Comments »
