BANANA CREAM PIE

Last weekend at the cottage we were having guests for dinner and I was in charge of dessert! A bit nerve racking as I feel like dessert skills have taken a backseat since school started but I was eager to try something new, light and fresh. I opted for banana cream pie, as it is a favourite of my dads and in my mind a bit simpler to make compared to a complex cake!

I searched around for a good recipe, and settled for one by Martha Stewart. I can't begin to describe how great this pie really was. Making it the day you eat it just screams freshness, from a ripe banana to whipped cream, this pie could not be more decadent for the summer. Enjoy!!


Banana Cream Pie

Ingredients:
- All-purpose flour, for dusting
- 1 9 inch pie shell (or homemade pie dough)
- 1 large whole egg, lightly beaten, plus 4 large egg yolks
- 6ish medium-ripe bananas
- 3 cups whole milk
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 5 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup heavy cream (plus a bit of vanilla for whipping, that's my little addition)
- 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

- Line chilled pie shell with a round of parchment paper, leaving a 1-inch overhang. Fill with pie weights or dried beans (This is called blind baking, so that your bottom crust doesn't puff up when you pre bake it). Bake until edges of crust just turn golden, 10ish minutes if you are using a pre made shell, probably 20-25 if you are using dough you made yourself. 

- In a bowl, lightly whisk egg yolks; set aside. 

- In a saucepan, whisk together milk, granulated sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Bring to a simmer (do not boil), and cook, whisking constantly, 3 to 4 minutes.

- Whisk a quarter of hot-milk mixture into egg yolks; whisk in remaining milk mixture. Strain into a clean saucepan, and cook over medium-high heat, whisking constantly, until custard is thick and bubbles appear in center, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl, and cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly onto surface to prevent a skin from forming. Chill in fridge. (Filling can be kept in refrigerator, covered with plastic wrap, up to 1 day.)

- Cut 5 bananas into rounds. Beginning at the edge of the piecrust, arrange the slices in slightly overlapping rows or circles. Cover with custard, using an offset spatula to smooth it into an even layer.

- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine cream, vanilla and confectioners' sugar; beat until soft peaks form. Using a small offset spatula, spread the whipped cream on top of the custard. Refrigerate pie, loosely covered with plastic wrap, for at least 1 hour or up to 2 days.

photo credit: sammy's ipad!

FENNEL & ORANGE SALAD

A couple of weeks go marked the first "Cookbook Club" dinner with about six of my friends from chef school. Once a month we decided get together and cook. The host chooses a cookbook and each person is responsible for preparing one of the parts of the meal! 

The first cookbook chose was French Taste by Laura Calder. I made the appetizers, which I will later share, but one of the dishes that really stuck with me was my friend Kyle's orange & fennel salad. Two fabulously fresh and interesting ingredients. The purple flowers that garnish the photo below (of Kyle's dish) are chive flowers, and I think an absolutely gorgeous touch to a summer fresh dish.

Fennel & Orange Salad

Ingredients:
- 1 fennel bulb, fronds reserved (this is just the fennel hairs on the top of the bulb)
- olive oil for frying
- sea salt, and ground pepper
- 1 orange
- 1/2 small red onion
- handful small black olives
- handful toasted pinenuts
- zest and juice of 1 lemon

Directions:

- Trim the fennel, reserving a handful of green fronds. Cut into slices about 1/4-inch thick. Heat a little olive oil in a saute pan, and, working in batches and seasoning with salt and pepper as you go, fry the fennel on both sides until golden and tender. As the fennel is done, arrange it on a serving platter.
- Zest the orange and set the zest aside. Remove the skin with a sharp knife, taking care to remove all the white pith from the fruit. Discard the peel. Cut out the orange sections, arranging over the fennel, and squeeze the orange juice over the whole salad.

- Slice the onion into paper thin rings and arrange over the salad. Scatter over the olives and pine nuts. Squeeze over lemon juice, to taste.

- Drizzle over a little more olive oil. Finally, scatter over the reserved fennel fronds. Serve.

 

photo credit: moi!

CHICKEN KEBABS

Summer is finally here, and one of my loves of summer is the BBQ! Last week I decided to make some delicious BBQ chicken kebabs, courtesy of Jamie Oliver! I love the barbecue for so many reasons, I think the flavour you get out of a bbq is second to none. A bbq, summer weather and eating outdoors... it's pretty hard to beat.

The chicken ones are the top left!

These kebabs were so easy to make but just jammed packed with flavour. I find that I don't always have time to let things marinate, but this is one of those times that I was so thankful I did! The flavours of the herbs really penetrated the chicken and after the bbq they were extremely moist and tender.

Jamie O's Chicken kebabs
Makes 6-8 kebabs

Ingredients:
- 4 or 5 free-range boneless chicken breasts
- 3 or 4 zucchini, sliced very thinly lengthways
-  6–8 skewers or sticks of fresh rosemary, lower leaves removed, tips kept on

for the marinade
- 1 handful of fresh coriander
- 1 handful of fresh mint
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 6 spring onions
- 1 red chilli
- zest and juice of 1 lemon
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- olive oil

Directions:
- Cut the chicken into 2.5cm/1 inch cubes and place in a bowl.
- Blanch the courgette strips in salted boiling water for 30 seconds then drain and allow to cool.
- Blitz all the marinade ingredients (except the olive oil) in a food processor, then loosen to a paste with a little olive oil.
- Add the marinade to the chicken pieces and mix well. Allow to sit for up to an hour.
- Then weave the courgette strips in between the chicken pieces on the rosemary sticks or skewers.
- Grill for around 5 minutes, turning regularly, until cooked.
- Feel free to cut a piece open to check if they're done.

photo credits: jamie o & me!

ARCTIC CHAR & BEURRE ROUGE

Arctic Char is a saltwater and freshwater round fish that is an ever popular choice on today's fish menu! It is a fish that is very similar to slamon and trout, as it is related to them! The flesh is pinky, like salmon but with less fat.

Last week in our culinary skills classe we made potato crusted arctic char with a beurre rouge (a red wine butter reduction!). I will share with you, as this is one of those recipes that would be sure to impress anyone! And cooking fish is so great, because it literally takes only five minutes, so the prep time is so much less!

Potato Crusted Arctic Char (Serves 4)
Ingredients:
- 4 filets of Arctic Char
- 1 yukon gold potato thinly sliced into rounds (best done on a Mandolin)
- Vegetable oil
- Splash of lemon juice
- Salt and pepper

Directions:
- Cut the potatoes into thin thin rounds (you want them paper thin)
- Season the filets with the lemon juice, salt and pepper and then arrange your thin potato rounds on top of the char forming a sort of "crust"
- Heat a splash of oil in a saute pan until reaching the smoking point
- Remove the pan from the heat, and turn to low
- Add the char to the pan (presentation side down) and return to the heat
- Pan dry gently to ensure the potato crust is cooked and golden brown
- Once potatoes are cooked through carefully flip the char to finish cooking it all the way through
- Serve immediately with the beurre rouge

Beurre Rouge (Red Wine Butter Sauce)
Ingredients:
- 100ml red wine
- 30g shallots (chopped)
- 150g butter
- 1/2 lemon (juice)
- salt and pepper

Directions:
- Reduce the wine, shallots and half of the lemon juice by 2/3rds (on medium high heat)
- Cut the butter into small cubes
- Swirl in the butter cubes into the read wine and let melt, while continually swirling or stiring with a wooden spoon
- Add salt and pepper and adjust seasoning if necessary
- Strain and serve with char


photo credit: carl of course!

PORK, APPLE, SAGE SAUSAGE

In our Banquet & Production class at school, each week we are given a certain protein. For example pork. And with this protein we use our butchery skills to butcher the piece of meat into workable sizes to produce about four different dishes. Last weeks lab was pork. The best part about this class is our chef challenges us to make one more dish using any of the extra ingredients we have or any of the spice supplies in the lab. I took on this challenge and was inspired by last weeks Top Chef Canada where Connie showed supermarket goers how to make sausage at home! I settled on making a pork sausage, seeing as we had leftover ground pork, apples, onion and sage.

A classic pairing combo with pork is apples (pork & applesauce), so I cut up some apples and onions into small cubes, brunoise as its called and sauteed them off so they were a bit soft. I then mixed in chopped sage, some white pepper, garlic powder and a pinch of nutmeg and salt. Before making them though, I fried off a piece to make sure they tasted alright, and I must say, they really were delicious! As Connie showed us on Top Chef, you can easily make your own sausages by rolling out a long tube in a piece of plastic wrap and then poaching in simmering water on the stove! It was incredibly easy, and you really could do this at home!

Here is a picture of my dish! The sausage shape is not the finest, but at least it tasted great!

photo credit: carl & the iphone

THE BLACK HOOF

If you know Toronto's food scene, you know that The Black Hoof if now one of the best spots in town, loved and adored by the critics. I have been itching to go for months now, but was always nervous to try it on a Friday or Saturday since they don't take reservations! I finally went! With my three classmates from George Brown on a Monday night, at 6pm. By 6:25, the place was almost full - on a MONDAY!

The Black Hoof is cozy on the inside fitting about 25 including bar seats, decorated with dim lighting, rustic wood and tin. The kitchen is open and the smallest I have ever seen. Four of them squeezed into a tiny cube with an old-school electric oven that one would expect to see at a cottage. As someone learning to be a chef, the respect I felt for that team after seeing that was insane!

As the Monday I went was a gorgeous night we decided to sit on the patio that had recently just opened. The patio is constructed of beautiful wood with a large image on a pig on one wall and two chalkboard menus, one for the drinks and one for the wine. We started with the Hoofs creative cocktails, a basil fawlty (gin, orange blossom water, lime, simple syrup and basil), a tequila Maria and two lemon meringue-inspired cocktails sweetened with a lavender simple syrup called lillypies.

We instantly devoured the menu and settled on ten different sharing plates. The Black Hoof is really a place where you go to share food. The dishes are meant for that, as the mains are smaller then one might expect a typical main to be. We started off with house-pickled vegetables, warm marinated olives, a cheese board and of course the famous meat platter. On the meat platter we had a wild selection! Genoa salami, duck proscuitto, fennel salami, sopressata, spicy sausage and horse mortdaella. The meats were arranged carefully on a beautiful wooden plank and served with grainy mustard and lavendar lard. A crazy duo but one that worked very well! The thing I loved most about The Black Hoof was the time they took to make their food pairings perfect. For example on the cheese board, the cheese were paired accordingly with a red current and rosemary jelly, a nutmeg and blueberry jam and a hazelnut and vanilla sauce with a bourbon glaze on the apples. Each component on their own was as lovely as when they were paired with the specific item. The originality behind the flavours at The Black Hoof is sheer culinary genius, as we all agreed at the end of the meal.

 Marinated Olives

 The Cheese Board

The Charcuterie Board

The complexity yet simplicity is apparent in each dish, and with every dish presented on a different type of plate, there was just such excitement when each dish was brought to the table! The real winner of the meal was the fried sweetbreads finished with fiddleheads (in season right now!), sautéed ramps, fingerling potatoes finished with a velvety butter sauce. My other favourite was the  N'Duja and brussel crostini with a parsley pesto, fried parsley and fresh Parmesan (N'Duja is sort of like chorizo in my mind, a bit spicy!) You can tell that the quality of the ingredients used is there, and when we talked with one of the owners, Jen she told us that they are constantly changing the accompaniments of each dish according to the season.

 N'Duja Crostini

 Tongue on Brioche

 Fiddleheads

The concept behind The Black Hoof is meat, taking on the philosophy of snout-to-tail (aka using the whole animal, not just one piece.), where they use different sorts of meat and make the off cuts available to the general public. For example on their menu is horse, beef heart, sweetbreads, cod collar, fois gras, duck liver, tongue and pig belly. What a crazy selection! But they know what they are doing, and their execution is perfect. Never have I tried horse or sweetbreads, but both were extremely pleasurable to eat, something I would have never imagined!

The mood in The Black Hoof was calm but you could just feel all of the love and passion from everyone working there to those eating. The general manager and part owner Jen just finished off our meal perfectly by talking with four star struck chef school students on our way out. I will most definitely be heading back to the Hoof as soon as possible. 

And as my classmate, friend and fellow blogger Carl put it, The Black Hoof - "Where capicollo, chorizo and prosciutto happily clog the menu and your arteries."



photo credit: carl and his cool iphone

APPLIANCE FUN

I found this image while on StumbleUpon and I just thought I would share it! What a great idea for a grater! I want it!!

AGAVE Y AGUACATE

A newly opened hole in the wall in Toronto's Kensington Market, Agave & Aguacate has become my newest Mexican obsession! Run by Chef Francisco Alejandri, a former Stratford Chef School grad, this Mexican stall you could almost call it (as it is in a store with about four other vendors selling their own specialties) focuses on "Fresh Mexican take-out with quality in mind." Featuring the "tostada", Agave & Aguacate is quickly making a name for themselves, being named a daily lunch pick by the Toronto Life. A tostada is a dish where the base is a toasted form to hold the meal. In this case Alejandri's tostada is a fried tortilla so that it puffs up and is light crispy and airy.

He has two different options, the ting tostada and the green tostada. The ting tostada which was written about in the Toronto Life (which both friends I went with had!) was topped with chipotle chicken, creamy avocado, some Mexican crema fresca and slivered red onions lightly marinated in lime juice and salt.

Of course I had to go for the one that included guacamole, hence the green tostada. Expecting the guacamole to already be made, I was over the moon when Alejandri began to make it fresh by hand with ripe green avocados, lime juice, salt and some jalepeno. Super simple, incredibly flavourful. It was then topped with a large slice of queso fresco (a Mexican cheese, quite mild), some cream (much like sour cream) and a whole plum tomato that was sliced so perfectly and delicatley you would think his hands were that of a surgeon! The tomato was seasoned with just a little bit of salt and then the whole tostada was topped with guajillo - a type of dried chili pepper.

The day I went was also miserably cold and rainy and the pinto bean soup option just jumped off the blackboard at me! I love pinto beans, and with some toasted tortilla strips and a little queso fresco in the bottom, this soup could not have been more warming or delicious. A great start as I stood watching Alejandri make our tostada's! And finally for dessert - (this meal seriously came to a total of 15$ for the three items!) Lime Charlotte, a decadent lime cake that when served is drizzled with fresh lime juice, lime zest and a splash of good quality olive oil. The cake was extremley moist and the cream held so well with the lime flavouring. Needless to say, the three of us were extremley impressed. Alejnadri's skills are sensational, my eyes were glued to the precision, speed and perfectness of the food he prepared! I one day hope to have skills like that!

For an amazing Mexican fresh lunch or light dinner I urge you to try Agave & Agucate!

Agave y Aguacate, 214 Augusta Ave. (look for El Gordo Fine Foods), 647-208-3091.

ROASTED BEET SALAD

So the other night with my banoffee pie for dessert, one of my side dishes was a roasted beet salad! This past weekend we went out for dinner to Scaramouche and one of the starter's was a roasted beet salad with goat cheese, so from this delicious appetizer, I was inspired! This salad is so simple and a great alternative to a classic green salad. Beets have a really sweet natural flavour to them, making it a tasty treat for those kids who don't like leafy greens! The basis of the dressing, red wine vinegar, dijon and tarragon are a natural combination, and a perfect light dressing for the beets.

Roasted Beet Salad with Tarragon

Ingredients:
- Large red beets (depends on how many people you are having, at least 1 medium size beet per person)
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- salt and pepper
- olive oil
- 3 sprigs of tarragon

Directions:
- Wash beets. Set oven to 400degrees F
- Place on a layer on aluminum foil and mix olive oil salt and pepper around with the beets to cover them. Then take foil and mold it into a tent shape (in order to both steam and bake the beets at the same time)
- Place beets in oven for 45minutes to an hour, or until for tender.
- Remove from oven and peel (you may want to wear gloves when doing this as beets do stain a bit!)
- Slice into rounds.
- Whisk dijon, red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt & pepper together until emuslified. Mix in the tarragon leaves (you may chop them if you wish but I like the look at the leaf in tact)
- Toss beets in the vinaigrette and let rest until serving.
- This salad may be served warm or cold. ENJOY!

photo credit: my sister, nora b.

BANOFFEE PIE

I have been dying to try out Chuck Hughes' Banoffee Pie and tonight I finally made it. The bottom layer of the pie is ground up Oreo's and melted butter, followed by caramel, bananas and whipping cream. Could it sound more heavenly?! I however stray a bit from Chuck's recipe, as instead of using boiled evaporated milk as the caramel, I made my own caramel. (Which for those of you who don't know, is SUPER easy and takes legitimately 10 minuets max!) This dessert was so great, fun to make, and a total hit with my family tonight! Give it a try!
 

Banoffee Pie
Serves 4

Ingredients: 
- 20 Oreo cookies
- 1/4 cup butter, melted (60 ml)
- 1 can of condensed milk (300 ml) ** ( Instead of this I made my own caramel. To do that: dissolve one cup of sugar into 1/3 cup of water. Bring to a boil on med-high heat stirring occasionally (5-7 minutes max). Once you reach a medium brown colour add in 1/3 cup of cream and thicken on low heat for about 2 minutes. Finish with a splash of vanilla and cool.)
- 2 ripe bananas, sliced
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 cups 35 % cream (500 ml) (I used whipping cream instead)
- 1/4 cup icing sugar (60 ml)
- 2 tablespoons strong coffee (30 ml) 

 

Directions:
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 F (180 C).
- In a food processor, add the cookies and process until it becomes a crumb like mixture. Add butter and process again. Set aside.
- Meanwhile, take the condensed milk can and place it in an oven-proof stockpot filled with water. DO NOT OPEN THE CAN. Make sure the can is constantly covered in water. Bake in the oven for 3 ½ hours. Remove, let cool, open and set aside.
- In a bowl, mix the bananas with lemon juice. Set aside.
- Whip the cream with icing sugar and coffee in another bowl until soft peaks form. 

To serve: Using a round 4 inch mold directly on the serving plate, put a layer of the cookie mixture, then the slices of bananas, cover with the condensed milk (now toffee) and repeat the layers. Remove the mold and garnish with a dollop of cream. (I just used a regular circle cake mold as my cake was for a family of 8!) 

 

photo credit: my sissy