Cooking for three!

My little brother moved to Ottawa on Tuesday :)

In addition to being awesome in general, he likes food a lot! Yay!

It's kind of cool that he eats meat because Fred has been stuck living with a vegetarian (me) for most of the past seven (eight?) years. We had a barbeque last night and Will and Fred had bavette de boeuf. It's going to be nice for Fred to have a carnivore to cook with.

PLUS, I want to try to eat meat. Not chickens (I have friends who are birds) and not pork (pigs are so smart, plus I read somewhere that pork is the closest meat to human flesh and true or not I just can't get over it). I eat some seafood but not squid or octopus (cephalopods are too magical and smart to eat), and I eat some fish. I just stopped eating tuna because of this article.

That leaves me with meats like crab, oysters, lobster, and scallops, and... beef. For some reason, beef seems like the least offensive meat to eat, but I am having so much trouble bringing myself to eat it. I've tried a few bites of beef recently - bavette a couple of times and some filet mignon, but I can't get past the fact that it's meat. And I know that doesn't make sense - crab is just as meaty as beef.

My reasons for being vegetarian have changed a lot over the last 17 years, and it's something I'll blog about soon. But now I wish I could try life on the carnivore side - not necessarily forever, but just enough to know what it's like.

Cream salad - weird but good

I've been cooking a lot lately... Fennel and leek risotto on Friday, awesome cream salad yesterday... A semi-weird salmon tikka recipe from Jamie Oliver on Thursday...

I haven't been posting though, because I am lazy. Also because my camera sucks and doesn't inspire me to take food pictures.

Okay, so cream salad recipe with no photos:

Chop up some lettuce or dandelion greens or arugula or whatever you want. Chopped up raw beet greens would be good! I am crazy for iceberg lettuce right now - it doesn't get the respect it deserves AT ALL. It is wonderful.

Anyway, the dressing is white wine vinegar, olive oil, some cream (35% is really good, 15% works too), a bunch of black pepper, and a ton of herbs (fresh parsley, oregano, thyme, etc.)

Okay, the best part:

Tear naan bread into chunks and toss with olive oil, crushed garlic, salt and pepper. Pan fry it or toast it in the oven until it is all golden and crispy.

Yum.

Throw some toasted walnuts on the salad and some Roquefort or other blue cheese. Or something else if you hate blue cheese.

Add the warm croutons on top. Drizzle the dressing over everything.

I'm going to make this again SOON, I am kind of obsessed with it.

Goat cheese failure

Made roasted eggplant with goat cheese last night.

Fred wasn't too excited, he kind of hates eggplant, but I convinced him to try it, told him that it's suuuuuch a yummy recipe...

I served dinner, we each took a bite, and... Horrible. We bought "honey" chevre instead of plain goat's milk cheese.

It was so bad.

Ended up going for a walk by the river and eating a Dairy Queen blizzard for dinner.

Caramelized onion lasagne

Easy and good, and you can speed things up by preparing the onions, eggplant, etc. ahead of time.

Steps:

• Caramelize your onions (cook slowly pver low heat until soft and sweet and golden).
• Roast, grill, or sauté slices of zucchini and  eggplant.
• Make your cheese mixture: 3 beaten eggs + ricotta + grated whatever other types of cheese you like + nutmeg.
• Layer your cooked noodles with grilled veggies + tomato sauce, cheese mixture, and some spoonfuls of goat's milk cheese.
• Finish with a layer of the caramelized onions (I use a lot, maybe a cup and a half of them) and  some grated mozzarella + parmesan.

Tips:

• Put a thin layer of tomato sauce on the bottom of your baking dish before adding the first layer of noodles.
• Use fresh lasagne noodles or the dried ones that you have to boil in advance. The noodles that cook while baking are weird. They taste a tiny bit bizarre. I think. But I might be over-thinking things and just making extra work for myself.

Katie's semi-white-trash "cassoulet"

I started making this, um, thing when I was broke and living on my own in a crummy room I rented in Ottawa last year. It's kind of bad but good. No, it is good, but I replaced good sausages with veggie weiners, so, uh, yeah...
Almost White Trash Cassoulet

Caramelize some nice big chunks of onion - using big pieces mean you'll come across succulent onions in your cassoulet. Yum. You could also make a mirepoix with diced onions, carrots, and celery.

Add veggie weiners (I prefer Yves "Tofu Dogs" over their "Veggie Dogs") sliced on a diagonal and sauté until brown. Add some peeled, diced tomatoes, or canned tomatoes, some white navy beans, and a bunch of fresh thyme and oregano. I throw in a couple of bay leaves as well.

Simmer until it seems ready, and don't be scared of using tons of oilve oil in this recipe.

And if you eat meat, I'd use some nice sausages instead of the tofu dogs :)

Lentil salad that is actually good. I mean it.

This is yummy and it's filling enough to be a meal. I like to throw in sprouted wheat berries and sunflower seeds, or serve it with some sunflower sprouts on the side.

Cook lentils (I like to use lentilles de Puy), stir in some diced tomatoes and red onion, chopped mint and parsley, and balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Top with sliced roasted beets (roast whole at 400 degrees until tender, then cool, peel, and slice) and yoghurt cheese (I like to use goat's milk yoghurt for this salad). Drizzle some more olive oil on top.

Yogourt cheese is really easy to make - here's my recipe.

And I know it looks like there's a poached egg on top of my salad, but it's olive oil and yogourt cheese. 

Yogourt cheese

Really easy and shockingly good.  It's thick and creamy and tangy and you can make it with regular yogourt or with goat's milk yogourt. I really like to use Liberté yogourt, it's a company from Québec that makes really good dairy products (their cream cheese is awesome too). 

Put yogourt in a dishcloth, twist, and leave in a colander to drain for a few hours or overnight (refrigerated). Give it a squeeze every now and then. The longer you leave it the thicker it will get.

 It's a good base for dips and spreads and it's yummy spread onto bagels (or onto toast with strawberry jam). Mix in chopped roasted eggplant and lemon juice and serve with toasted pita for an easy snack or lunch.