Rose's Roundup - The Dish That Keeps On Giving

Breakfast Crepes - I love when a recipe keeps on giving. Those recipes that keep on giving remind me of the children's book Something From Nothing, where the cherished blanket of a young boy keeps being reconstructed into an assortment of different keepsakes by his mother, so that he could keep fragments of his beloved blanket throughout wear and tear. It was the blanket that kept on giving. My Butternut Squash Cannelloni that I developed for the Dairy Farmers of Canada Great Cream Challenge was the type of dish that kept on giving. After making it I was left with a fridge full of goodies like ricotta cheese, fresh sage, cream, and dry pressed cottage cheese. The leftover ingredient that stood out most for me was the dry pressed cottage cheese, as it was something I don't often have on hand in my fridge, and it always reminds me of making cheese blintzes with my dad. 

With just enough pressed cottage cheese for three little bundles of cheese blintzes, I had lots of leftover crepe batter to do with as I pleased. Yet again the dish kept on giving. For the following few days I had so much fun playing around with different ways to prepare my leftover crepe batter. The standout?  Hands down, my favourite crepe dish was my button-busting breakfast crepes, that allowed me to use up just about every breakfast appropriate item found in my fridge. Filled with scrambled eggs, basil, bacon, sauteed mushrooms and onions, blistered cherry tomatoes, spinach, and a prosciutto crisp for garnish, these crepes were packed with so much flavour and substance, it could have kept me full all day! 

Homemade Pizza Party - When a friend needs help perfecting a recipe, they can always count on me to come to the rescue...or at least try! When my friend David got hold of an old family recipe for a pizza that his grandmothers friend would serve at every family event, he roped me into helping him recreate the untraditional pizza that he had loved so much growing up. With little experience making pizza myself, other than the purchased dough that I sometimes turn to for convenience, this was a bit of a crapshoot for me, but I felt I was ready to take on the challenge! 

It was in the very first step that our first issue arose. Once again I am confronted with an example of "trust your instincts, Danielle." As soon as I read the packet of the instant yeast we had purchased, I thought to myself that that didn't sound quite right. Unlike the yeast that I was familiar with that you add to warm water with a bit of sugar to let sit and develop, these instructions told me to mix the yeast into 1/3 of the flour and add the warm milk to that. Despite my instincts yelling at me to do as I had always done in the past, I followed the packets instructions and continued with the recipe, allowing the dough to rest for an hour to double in size. Nope. That didn't happen. After an hour of letting the dough rest while we prepared the toppings, our dough was the exact same size. Ah well, we thought, it'll still taste good. We pressed out the dough into a square baking sheet, as Davids grandmothers friend had always done, and topped it with all of the toppings we had prepared. 

Despite the fact that the dough didn't look exactly as we thought it should, the pizza looked so damn delicious by the time we pulled it out of the oven. Bubbling and hot, we eagerly dove into our slices. Despite our crust rising issues, the texture of the dough was great, but something was wrong. There was so much flavour in each bite that I had to keep reaching for my beer...too much flavour in fact. How can you have too much flavour in a pizza? When you add more than double the amount of salt you were supposed to add you do! With almost two tablespoons of salt in our dough, it came out inanely salty. Overwhelming saltiness couldn't keep me from finishing my piece, I still enjoyed every bite! Certainly not perfect as a first attempt, but not disastrous either! I still call it a success...with room for improvement!

Hot Honey Garlic Wings - My boyfriend Chris and I love each other very much, but we have both come to terms with the fact that there will always be another love in both of our lives. For me, my second love will always be cheese, and Chris will always have a large place in his heart for hockey. Despite my initial disinterest in hockey, Chris' enthusiasm for the sport can be infectious, and although I hate to admit it, I find myself getting sucked in every now and then. With the Leafs out of the playoffs I had to find a new team to cheer for, and with Chris' hockey team, The Heisenberg's, still going strong with a 17-game winning streak and securing the title of Facility Champions for 2014, I turned into their little puck bunny cheerleader. 

I watched them destroy their opposing team in game-16 in the midst of a division tournament, and jumped up and cheered when I got the message that they had once again killed it with game-17 the following day. They had two more games to win in order to be crowned with the title of division champions, and I was sure they had it in the bag. It was when I became surrounded by a huge group of loud Quebecers up in the stands that I started to get nervous for them. The opposing team drove all the way from Quebec to play in the tournament, along with a massive squad of cheerleaders composed of family and friends. I knew these guys had to be good. Sure enough those fiesty Frenchies did the unthinkable and beat my dear Heisenberg's. 

Although we had good fun sipping beers and watching the rest of the Raptors game on a cell phone in the sun after the game, Chris was mighty bummed at his teams loss. This called for chicken wings! Lots and lots of chicken wings to drown Chris' sorrows in. Not having tried my Hot Honey Garlic Wings yet, I let my sad guy have a nap on the couch while I prepared him a huge bowl of sweet and spicy wings topped with lots of fresh cilantro and lime wedges. No, tasty wings couldn't bring the Heisenberg's back into the running, but it sure could sooth the sting of their loss. Next year the cup is yours, boys! You're gonna kill it!

Sweet Pepper Potato Salad - A few months ago my sister Justine and her boyfriend moved into a lovely little apartment on the main floor of a house that features big rooms, high ceilings, a large shared backyard, and their very own porch. There were so many positive changes to them swapping digs in their favourite neighborhood, but the place was definitely a "fixer upper." After myself, my family, and Justine and her boyfriends friends and family had spent many hours helping them out with sanding, painting, packing, moving, and so on and so forth, their place is finally the beautiful, livable apartment that we promised Justine it would be (she was definitely skeptical for a while there). The one downfall to their apartment? They have a stove, which the safety inspector feels is more appropriately called "a firetrap". From the moment I set eyes on the decrepit gas stove, I knew it was going to be trouble, something that their landlord has failed to agree with, in defiance of the warning that was issued by the inspector. So my poor sister and her boyfriend have had to indulge in restaurants and takeout for months now, which has certainly taken a tole on their wallets. 

Justine's 24th bithday at the end of April produced a bit of a savior for their current predicament. Finally being able to have outdoor space to themselves, my mom and I knew that Justine would love nothing more than a BBQ for her birthday. Thank goodness for that BBQ! Now Justine and her hubby have been able to prepare all of their meals on the grill until their stove issue gets sorted out. To celebrate the warmer weather and BBQ addition, my family and I got together at Justine's place for a good ol' fashioned BBQ of hamburgers and sausages with all the fixings. It was requested that my contribution to the BBQ be a potato salad, and with lots of potato salads in the Ginger Rose archive, I knew I would be set. I found a recipe for one of my favourite potato salads that I have posted, a Sweet Pepper Potato Salad, that is bright, colourful, and has great flavours and a texture that keeps you coming back for more! Crispy, sweet, tangy, and creamy this potato salad could win over anyone! 

Poached Egg On Toast With Asparagus - The dish that kept on giving, kept on giving to help to create this lip smacking good take on breakfast for dinner. The leftover ricotta from my Butternut Squash Cannelloni was utilized to add a punch of creaminess to this kicked-up egg and toast dish, complimenting the crispy multigrain toast and crunchy roasted asparagus. Buttered multigrain toast is topped with a poached egg, roasted prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, blistered cherry tomatoes, and fresh ricotta for a quick, easy, and satisfying breakfast for dinner...that still leaves a bit of room for dessert!

Arugula Prosciutto & Goat Cheese Crostini - There's not a whole lot that I miss after leaving the gross bar I was working at a few months ago, but the one thing that I do painfully miss are the friends who still work there that I left behind. So when I was invited by my friend Krysten, who I had the pleasure of working at the bar with, to come up to her cottage for the weekend with my best friend Robin (who I also worked at the bar with) and a number of other girls, (including two more who had also worked at the bar for a period of time) I jumped at the chance to spend the whole weekend with the ladies that I miss so dearly. 

It was so nice to spend one of the first warm weekends up north relaxing, drinking, playing games, and eating everything in sight with such a great group of women. So much of our fun was thanks to the two hostesses with the mostesses Krysten and her sister Cass, who took care of all us with delicious meals and snacks all weekend. One of my favourite tastes of the weekend was the lunchtime snack that Krysten so beautifully prepared: Garlic Crostini Topped with Arugula, Prosciutto, & Goat Cheese. Although this dish is very simple to prepare, it is so deliciously flavourful and full of pleasant textural contrasts that you could literally eat an entire plate to yourself! Thanks for giving me a spectacular weekend, ladies! Let's do it again soon!

On My Mind:

I've found myself a new summer band and they're located right in in Toronto! Listen to the Joonbugs to be transported into their dreamy, nostalgic, folk music world.

This made me laugh out loud! Support the artist with a very small fee to watch the whole short film, it's worth it!

Momofuku Milk Bar in Toronto is now serving cereal milk flavoured soft serve! I repeat, CEREAL MILK FLAVOURED SOFT SERVE! I must try this!

Poor lil' squirrel. Can I take you home?

I hope this can live up the un-freaking-believable experience at had at London's Punchdrunk production of The Drowned Man.

Love it or hate it? Make your vote count for the Toronto Architecture Awards, The Pug Awards!

Only about 20ish years late, but I'm not complaining! Skin-a-marink-e-dink-e-dink-skin-a-marink-e-do! I love you!

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Listening To:

The Joonbugs - Red And Blue

Rose's Roundup - Memories Of Perfect Breakfasts & Exploring German Cuisine

Waffle Eggs Bennie - There's only so many times that my chef school teacher can tell us that "Hollandaise is the most difficult sauce to master" before I get off my tush and prove that lil' ol' me can master the famously tricky sauce. I have made hollandaise in the past and it came out marvelously! I must say that my marvelous hollandaise sauce results were thanks to a trick I learned from my celebrity chef hero Ina Garten, who taught me (and I suppose the rest of the Food Network-watching world) how easy hollandaise sauce can be when armed with a trusty blender. No, it's certainly not the traditional arm workout over a bain-marie method, but if the results are just as silky, tangy, and voluminous then who cares? But hearing Chef Frank repeatedly tell us how famously difficult it is,  made me second guess my hollandaise making skills.

It was the morning before our class on sauces (where I knew Chef Frank would be striking hollandaise fear into our heads once again) that I decided to remind myself that Ina's blender trick would defy the hollandaise success odds. It was a delivery of my Oma's famous (in our family at least) German waffles  that struck the match of inspiration, sending me on an eggs benedict mission. I knew Oma's waffles would be the perfect bed for a mess of poached eggs, crispy prosciutto (no bacon? no problem!), fresh chives, and of course a blanket of lemony hollandaise. It took all of 3-minutes (no exaggeration!) to make Ina's perfect hollandaise sauce in a blender, and all of 10-minutes to savour each and every bite of sweet and salty goodness. I couldn't help but walk into class that night with my head held high, a smirk on my face, knowing that I defied hollandaise success odds that morning. 

Chicken Crepes - My love/hate relationship with chicken crepes started years ago at BOOM Breakfast Co. We shared an intimate morning together as I dug into it's soft exterior to reveal its savory, cheesy insides, and swooned over the rich and creamy sauce that soaked up each bite. Love at first bite. Our love affair continued as I ordered those sinful chicken crepes each and every time I went to BOOM, not once regretting never having tried any other dish on their generous menu. But as they say, all good things must come to an end. My dear, beautiful chicken crepes did the unthinkable and skipped town on me. Vanished without a trace. Gone, never to be seen again! I remember turning the newly laminated menu over and over in my clammy hands, baffled and heartbroken that my appetite could be betrayed in such a way! They had changed their menu, and the crepes were gone. After a brief mourning period that included salty-tear-garnished eggs benedict, I shook myself off and proclaimed that I would replicate my dear chicken crepes, making them even better than before! 

I won't share with you my agony at attempting to recreate the crepes that I loved so dearly, because, quite frankly, it would bore you to the same tears that I shed at each failed chicken crepe attempt. It wasn't until last semester in Chef Skills 1 where I learned the basics of sauce making, producing with care the five mother sauces, that I understood how I could bring my long gone chicken crepes back to life. By using a simple chicken velouté recipe I was finally able to reclaim the most true-to-the-original chicken crepe sauce as of yet. Though I had finally created a recipe for chicken crepes that wouldn't leave me feeling dejected, and though I went back for seconds, truly enjoying each bite, my crepes are not perfect yet (key word!). So I will refrain from posting the recipe for you until I am sure that it will incite the same lust that I felt with that first bite of chicken crepes from BOOM. 

Ina's Herb-Marinated Pork Tenderloin - In a fit of jealousy, thanks to the famously fickle Taylor Swift's Instagram photo, of her in my future-best-friend Ina Garten's Hampton kitchen, I scoured the web for an Ina recipe that would maybe, just maybe, bring us closer together. Of course such nonsense would only make sense to a lunatic red head with her head in the clouds (and my clouds are made of burrata cheese, by the way), but in my strange red head, carefully crafting an Ina recipe would mean pushing miss Swift aside (does she even cook?!) and leave room for moi. 

With a fridge full of options and a seemingly endless string of Ina recipes, it took longer than normal to settle on a dinner choice. Perhaps it was because I just couldn't envision little country croonin' Swift digging into a big chunk of pork, that had me finally decide on making Ina's Herb-Marinated Pork Tenderloin. More than that, the recipe sounded fast, simple, required no grocery shopping, and was sure to be delicious. Even though Ina's Herb-Marinated Pork Tenderloin likely didn't help to advance my friendship with Ina in any way, it was a wonderfully comforting way to end a chilly late winter day, and I recommend you give it a try. Ina, if you're out there, I'm a great listener, I'm a hoot be around, and will shower you with love and compliments. Let's be friends. Just say the word and I'll book my Porter flight for a visit. 

The Musket Jaeger Schnitzel - Essays and exams can be excruciating, but nothing, no nothing, comes close to being as painful as doing group assignments. The major final assignment for my Food Theory 1 class was to make a presentation and tasting about a country of our choice. With many members of our group having ties to the beer-guzzling, schnitzel-eating European country Germany, it was easy to decide on Deutschland as our country of choice. It took all of two weeks to discover that my group work fears were thankfully misguided, with a group of seven who were not only willing to share the workload, but were also interesting, smart, and great fun to be around. 

With part of our assignment requiring us to visit an authentic German restaurant, we carpooled over to The Musket in Etobicoke, where chef Richard Esner serves up an array of authentic German dishes. Lucky for our group, almost all of us had different tastes, allowing us to get a sight of many of the specialties offered on the large menu. It was the savory mushroom sauce that left me salivating like Pavlov's dog, that made me order the Jaeger Schnizle, a thin and tender piece of pork, swimming in a full-flavoured mushroom sauce, alongside tangy purple cabbage, and simple roasted potatoes. If the image alone doesn't have you throwing your coat and shoes on to head out to Etobicoke, let me tell you, that Jaeger Schnitzel was like biting into a piece of German heaven. I think I could have very well slurped a whole bowl of that mushroom sauce all by itself, it was so tasty! All around, the whole meal was a wonderful success, with each group member devouring every bite of their appropriately massive portion. We cheers-ed our Hacker-Pschorre Weisse to a fantastic meal and what was sure to be a wonderful presentation! 

Oma's Cabbage Rolls - My Food Theory 1 project on Germany has been such wonderful fun, allowing us to visit a German restaurant, market, and learn the history behind the western-central country's rich history of food and drink, but nothing for this project has been such a delight as getting to go into my Oma's kitchen to learn how to make her dance-in-your-chair delectable German Cabbage Rolls. I had always assumed that Oma's cabbage rolls were an endeavor that would require your full attention all day, with so many different parts that make up the final dish. Surely her cabbage rolls must mean a laborious all-day process of first making the filling, then making the sauce, then carefully forming the cabbage bundles by hand, and cooking them off.

With the camera rolling in order to capture Oma's charm and every step of her recipe, as European grandmothers never seem to measure anything, Oma answered my question of "do cabbage rolls take very long to make?" with a head tilt and "mmm, not really." Liar, I thought! There was no way those tasty little bundles of beef, pork, and rice could mmm, not really take long. As she loves to do, Oma proved me wrong. Maybe it was because I was having so much fun by my Oma's side that made time fly, or maybe Oma was right, but the cabbage rolls seemed to be coming out of the oven in a tangle of steam and fragrant gravy in next to no time. I'm so glad that I finally learned how to make Oma's remarkably simple cabbage rolls, but more than anything I am so happy to have a video of my spunky, adorable Oma doing what she does best in the kitchen, that I will cherish forever. Watch my Oma in action here.

Fresh Pasta with Bolognese Sauce - Sunday night is family night in my family, meaning myself and sometimes my sister and her live-in boyfriend enjoying a large meal, lovingly prepared by my mom. There once was a time when I would eagerly take part in preparing our Sunday evening feast, a time before I lost myself in the sticky, beer-covered bar that I called my job for the past two years, where the Sunday brunch shift was mine. The Sunday brunch shift not only meant early endings on Saturday nights, due to early wake-ups on Sunday mornings, but also not being able to return home until just before whatever roast, stew, or slow-cooked creation was to be plated. For the past two years I missed being able to provide my family with a meal full of love on Sunday nights. So on my very first Sunday evening free from the bar, I decided to take the time to make ribbons of homemade pasta enveloped in a hearty beef and pork bolognese. 

This was my second attempt at making bolognese, having first made it as a teamwork dinner with my boyfriend Chris a few months ago. Our attempt at making fresh pasta and bolognese was a fantastic success minus one little misstep. The al dente pasta noodles that Chris masterfully made were wonderful, but my bolognese, though delicious, was thrown off ever so slightly by the addition of smoked pancetta. Though pancetta most certainly adds a great deal of depth of flavour to a bolognese sauce, the smokiness was a little too overpowering for our taste buds. With that in mind, I chose to use regular pancetta this time around, sure that that would result in a perfectly meaty bolognese. Though my sauce was once again very tasty and was enjoyed by all present, I now found that the sauce seemed to be missing something. Although I would not use all smoked pancetta in my sauce, I believe that a combo of both regular and smoked pancetta would send this comforting dish to new heights. Here's to round three! 

On My Mind:

This gorgeous Victorian London home for sale is right up my alley thanks to it's beautiful backyard, classic detailing, and spaceship attic...yup, you hear right, spaceship attic. 

I like to be prepared in case of an emergency, so if ever I need to spring myself free of zip ties entrapping my wrists in their constricting grip, I now feel adequately prepared.

There's nothing like adding another novel to your favourite book list. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami was an absolute pleasure to read, without question making it into my favourite book list.

Ever wonder what flying is like from the perspective of a pelican?

Only Bowie could get me so excited about a video game. 

Nice aim there, Kessel.

Why my meal at Yours Truly was one of my most memorable to date. True culinary art at its best.

Me, as a child in a nutshell...or should I say, in a church. I could swear this was me.

So much wanderlust right now thanks to talented photographer Vanessa Paxton's stunningly exquisite video of her experience traveling through Thailand. 

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Listening To:

Spoon - Don't You Evah

Rose's Roundup: The Allure of the Simple Dish

Nutella Cookies - Writing a food blog is wonderful because more often than not it encourages me to try new recipes, but the downside is I often forget to look back on some of my favourites. Giada de Laurentiis' recipe for Nutella Cookies was one of the first recipes I ever posted on my blog almost five years ago! I love this recipe for having that sweet chocolate and hazelnut pairing that we all know and love, but also for its slight bitterness, which keeps you coming back for more! Hot out of the oven these cookies are warm and gooey, but give them some time to cool and they become nice and crunchy, begging to be dunked into a glass of milk or even crumbled over an ice cream sundae. During the holidays I whipped up a batch of Giada's Nutella cookies (adjusting it slightly by adding some chocolate chips) intending to bring them to my friend Martha-In-Training's annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. It was just as the cookies came out of the oven that we began to get warning signs about a possible ice storm. Yes folks, I am talking about the ice storm of 2013. With a late and icy night ahead of us, and not the easiest commute to the party, we sadly abandoned our plans for ugly Christmas sweater party fun, and played it safe with a movie night on the couch. The upside? Nutella cookies ALL FOR ME!

Christmas Breakfast - Everyone celebrates Christmas with their own family a little bit different. For my family we like to do our big celebration with all of the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins on Christmas eve, eating and drinking until fairly late into the night. Come Christmas morning things get a lot more relaxing, as we leisurely open gifts with just my mom, my sister, and I...and often my honorary brother D, my sisters boyfriend. With so much rush leading up to Christmas, I didn't have time to make a dish of my own to contribute to our Christmas Eve festivities, so for Christmas morning I wanted to treat my family to something special of my own. For months now my boyfriend Chris and I have been obsessing over the southern "poor-mans-food" grits, having it for breakfast on an almost weekly basis. Never having tried grits before, my mom and my sister didn't understand my newfound obsession with the seemingly bland mush. Christmas morning was my chance to get them aboard the grits train! Creamy grits filled with sharp aged cheddar is topped with crispy and salty pancetta, a runny-yolk fried egg, caramelized onions, and chopped parsley. Needless to say, all it took was one bite to get them just as hooked on grits as me! They loved it!!

Spaghetti Aglio E Olio - Why is it that some of the simplest of foods always seem to find a way into my heart? Spaghetti Aglio E Olio is one of those extremely simple, yet wonderfully alluring dishes for me. Its the comfort of the dish that grabs my attention, as well as those simple familiar flavours. I guess it's that same simplicity that drew me to grits. I find those very plain and simple dishes to be so attractive for me, because there is so much room for play and improvement. For a long time I have been making my Pasta Aglio E Olio by simply tossing my pasta with a bunch of garlic infused olive oil, a bit of red pepper flakes, and lots and lots of parmesan cheese. As much as I enjoyed that simple combination, I knew I could make it better. I knew that the flavours could be amplified and I wanted to find a way of keeping that saucy feel to the dish, without having to use such an excessive amount of oil.

Being Italian, my boyfriend Chris grew up eating Aglio E Olio, with himself and many of his friends playing around with different variations on the European classic...often after midnight, with several drinks in their system. Of course it took the Italian boyfriend to discover what may be one of the best methods of making Aglio E Olio. Chris discovered Ina Garten's recipe for Spaghetti Aglio E Olio, which utilizes the starchy pasta water to extend the olive oil and cook the garlic slices so that by the time you add your pasta to the mix, the garlic has become creamy and mixes right in with the sauce. To amp up those flavours even more, we followed Ina's recipe, but began with our own addition, salty pancetta, rendered down to crispy perfection! With Ina's method of making the perfect garlic and olive oil sauce, combined with Chris and I's pancetta addition, I think we are on our way to perfecting one of the worlds most simplest dishes!

The Great Cream Challenge: Creamy Mac & Cheese - Every year for the past few years I have had the pleasure of taking part in the Real Cream Anyday Magic Great Cream Challenge! The challenge brings together different food bloggers from all over Canada, inviting them to choose a monthly theme and create a recipe of their choice that fits that particular theme, and utilizes the extremely versatile ingredient, cream! Three bloggers each month submit their recipes to share and invite the wold to vote on which recipe they like best. This year I am very excited to be taking part in three different themes throughout the challenge, the first being the Creamy Mac & Cheese challenge.

When coming up with a creamy mac & cheese recipe of my own, I first began by brainstorming all my favourite ways to eat cheese. I wanted to create a hybrid dish that would incorporate two of my favourite cheese dishes into one. After writing out an extremely long list of yummy cheese dishes (while snacking on cheese, of course!) I came up with the idea of a French Onion Mac & Cheese, incorporating those savory, comforting flavours we know and love from a classic french onion soup, with very basic mac & cheese recipe. My French Onion Mac & Cheese features red wine caramelized onions, beef broth, and, the best part of french onion soup, that cheesy gruyere and crouton topping, all served in individual soup bowls to give the full effect. I was so incredibly happy with how my French Onion Mac & Cheese turned out and cannot wait to share my recipe with you on February 3rd, when the Creamy Mac & Cheese Challenge goes live on the Dairy Farmers of Canada site!

Magical Oatmeal Raisin Cookies - ...enough said.

On My Mind:
Rethinking the humble carrot.

You have to check out one of my favoruite pinners Beth Kirby from Local Milk. The girl has an awesome eye for all things beautiful, and I repeatedly find myself pinning her gorgeous photos inspiring great style and delicious food!

Oh how children's toys have changed. This nostalgic look at old toys from the 80's is a great reminder that the "gendering" of children's toys is absolutely bananas! 

The only thing helping me survive this horrible, horrible polar vortex is my Little Hotties hand and foot warmers. Do yourself a favour and scoop up as many of these babies as you can get your hands on! 

Chris and I booked our plane tickets to London, England last night! Europe, here I come!!

This week in my Nutrition & Lifestyle class we learned about the incredible benefits of adding coconut oil to your diet, and it's ability to speed up your metabolism. Is coconut oil part of your diet?

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Listening To:

Phosphorescent - Tomorrow Is A Long Time (Bob Dylan Cover)

Rose's Roundup - The Extremely Belated Where-Did-The-Holidays-Go Roundup

Hey! Remember that time I wrote a weekly roundup that featured two or three weeks of posts...that I didn't post for about three-four weeks? It's amazing how time can fly during the holidays! So below is my very extremely belated roundup that has resulted in my changing my "Weekly Roundup" to a plain 'ol "Rose's Roundup" so I can feel like less of a failure each time I get my roundup up in a very untimely manner. 

I can't help but become introspective with the change of year each January, and this year has me thinking about priorities. This past year has been an extremely busy one for me, juggling three jobs plus my food blog, and evening courses at George Brown College for Chef Training, and I fear with so much on my plate (literally and figuratively) that some of the more important tasks are getting lost in the juggle. I'm hoping that my awareness of this will help me to edit my life a little bit and gain better perspective on my goals and the things I want out of my year. 

What's my main priority for 2014? I am determined to land myself a job working in recipe development. My blog has opened me up to so many wonderful opportunities and experiences like getting to attend hot events in the city; reviewing new products, books, and recipes; meeting and mingling with top dogs in the industry; and so much more! But what has been the most enjoyable for me has been the many different recipe development projects that I feel so lucky to be invited to work on, with companies from all over the country! I love the challenge of playing around with different ingredients, revising and editing until I have a finished product that I can't wait to send in, so very proud of the delicious results! 

I feel like I have been a bit neglectful of my blog because I don't often want to post a recipe until I feel confident that it is fantastic and ready for you to make in your own kitchen, which with my limited timing is not as often as I would like. Because of this you are going to begin to see a few changes in my blog. My blog is going to take a slightly different direction as I share my experiences developing recipes, acting as my own journal as I experiment with different recipes until it reaches that fantastic stage. All recipes will be experimental and open to revision until I give it my "From Ginger Rose's Kitchen" stamp of approval. I hope that this will open up a conversation with my readers as you play around with the different recipes that I post. I invite you to share your experiences in the kitchen, offering up tips and tricks that will help me to build on my recipes and grow as a chef. Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me and supported me all this time! Ginger Rose wouldn't be what it is today without you! Cheers to many new opportunities and experiences in 2014! 

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

Burn-My-Face-Off Chili - On a cold Winter Saturday, after working a busy shift at the pub all day long, nothing could make me happier than a big bowl of spicy chili and my boyfriend to cuddle with. While I was running around the pub getting beer and wing dip all over myself, my boyfriend Chris took some time out of his leisurely Saturday to make my night a little spicier. After a bit of chili research Chris came across an award-winning recipe for a Texas-style chili that he felt fit the bill for the night. After anticipating that big bowl of chili all day, I was perhaps a little too generous with my serving...a decision I would regret later. Chris' chili turned out to be so incredibly flavourful and delicious but....it was the spiciest damn thing I have ever eaten in my life!!! By far!! This chili was INSANE! After a few bites resulting in a flushed face and a sweaty head, we ended up doing shots of milk after each bite to tame our tongues at least a little bit. Despite the large bowl of seemingly liquid hot lava that I was served, I couldn't help but finish the whole bowl! It was just too delicious, even with all the heat! To try out the chili for yourself, check out the recipe here!

Potato Latkes - Every year come those eight crazy nights of Chanukah all I find myself thinking about is potato latkes. Over the years I have improved my latkes immensely, yet I still feel the need to try and perfect them, and turn those fried little rounds into a legend! This year the step that set my latkes apart was dumping all of the grated potatoes into a clean kitchen towel and squeezing the hell out of them multiple times to remove as much water as possible. That seemed to work wonders, but silly me did more latke research after making my latkes and picked up a few other interesting tips that I wish I had tried. One of the tips was to squeeze out the potato liquid into another bowl so I can keep the white potato starch that sinks to the bottom to add back into the potatoes to help them adhere together. On that note, if you don't have much potato starch left over, just buy a box of potato starch and use that! Here's to achieving those legendary latkes next year!

Sauce Week At Chef School - In our final class at George Brown Chef School before our exam we learned how to make six different sauces, many of which make up the "Mother sauces" or "leading sauces" which means they are the base that can lead to creating many other sauces. On the menu was:

Béchamel
Velouté
Chicken Demi Glace
Tomato Sauce
Beurre Blanc
Red Pepper Coulis

Although sauces were originally invented as a way to cover up bad and/or old meat and other unsavory ingredients, sauces have now become a staple to many meals adding flavour, visual appeal, moisture, and more! Being such a saucy gal, this was one of the classes I was most looking forward to all semester! I have always loved eating a good sauce, yet I found when I would attempt to make various sauces in my own kitchen, they would often fall flat. Learning about the breakdown of the different mother sauces, and learning about the three different rouxs and when to use them helped me to understand what I was doing wrong in the past, and little tricks that I can use to fix a sauce gone wrong. My favourite trick to thicken a sauce after making a roux is to make a Beurre manié, which is a paste made out of equal parts butter and flour that you can whisk into pretty much any sauce. This trick saved my ass when it came time to mark my sauces as both my béchamel and velouté didn't seem to want to thicken to the right consistency despite my efforts at making a roux at the beginning. I am looking forward to playing around with the various sauce-making techniques I learned in class to apply to future recipes! 

Emma's Country Kitchen - It's not often that I treat myself to brunch, with my Sundays all tied up with work each week, and my Saturdays dedicated to homemade breakfasts, but recently Chris and I decided to leave the breakfast making to someone else and consulted a list of the best brunch spots in Toronto. Although the list of fifty that we went through had so many tempting options, the one that stood out for us was Emma's Country Kitchen. Although their homemade biscuits was the first thing that caught our attention, it was the homemade dolce de leche beignets that got us rushing to put our coats and boots on and head over to St. Clair and Dufferin to indulge in brunch heaven. We knew we were in for a wait before going, so the crowded entrance came as no surprise to us. After about a half hour wait we were seated at the counter by the window (despite the uncomfortable stools, I love me some people watching!) and were being poured freshly squeezed orange juice and were requesting an order of three beignets! We were devastated to hear that the beignets were all sold out for the day (which just means I must go back!), so we settled on one giant house-made apple fritter, a worthy replacement. With images of fluffy warm biscuits in our minds, both Chris and I ordered the eggs benedict on biscuits. So incredibly rich, Emma's Country Kitchen eggs benedict definitely makes my list as one of the best eggs bennies I have had! Great food plus super service means you will be seeing me again Emma! Hopefully soon!

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Shrimp 'n Grits - What do you do when you are pressed for time and have a fridge full of a whole lotta nothin'? You learn from your mistakes and make sure your fridge is stocked for next time! No I don't mean fresh foods, although that is the best option, sometimes a busy schedule means that just can't happen. This is why I always like to keep frozen shrimp in my freezer (as well as good meal additions like frozen dark leafy greens, green peas, and corn niblets) and stone-ground grits in my pantry (just like you would have dried pasta, polenta, rice, and other grains). Last week when I was pressed for time before class and in need of substance before rushing out, it took all of 20-minutes for me to whip up a delicious and satisfying meal. I turned to Bobby Flay's recipe for shrimp and grits, thankful that I had some leftover bacon and a bit of parsley kicking around in my fridge. This recipe was so simple, yet so tasty!

Final Exam At Chef School - Last week I had my final exam for Chef Skills 1 at George Brown college and I am very proud to say I DID IT! I PASSED! On the menu for our exam was

Purée of Cauliflower Soup with Roasted Cauliflower

Fettuccini

Mushroom Cream Sauce

Goats Cheese & Sundried Tomato Wrap

I was really happy that our final exam challenged us, as we had never made anything on the menu other than the fresh fettuccini before, but was still fairly simple so we were scrambling to get everything handed in on time for "service". Although I was a little skeptical as to how I was going to fare at first, I was so incredibly relieved to have our chef tell me that everything was near perfect! I was ecstatic! I am so unbelievably happy that I made the snap decision to sign up for chef school this past Fall. I have learned so much and have acquired so much more confidence than I could have ever hoped for. This has been such a rewarding experience for me. I'm really looking forward to seeing where the rest of the courses take me and sharing my chef school adventures with you! 

Beef Bourguignonne - After Chris had spoiled me the previous week with his delicious homemade chili, I felt it was my turn to treat him to a warm and comforting meal. With Chris as my lovely sous chef, together we made Williams Sonoma's recipe for Beef Bourguignonne. What made this recipe stand out for us was the addition of swiss chard and turnips, making this comforting meal a little more healthy. The beef bourguignonne turned out absolutely incredible!! Chris was going nuts over it repeating over and over again "this is so good Dani!" and "this is definitely the best thing you've made me!" while going up for multiple helpings. This is one recipe that will most certainly be going down in the favourites! I can see myself making this one pot wonder for years to come!

Metro Gingerbread House - Last week thanks to Metro, I was sent a special delivery of a little pre-built gingerbread house designed by design expert Kimberley Sheldon and made by For The Love Of Cake, along with decorating tips from Kimberley! It's always been my dream to make a little log cabin gingerbread house, so with Kimberley's suggestion of having a colour scheme in mind, I attacked the aisles of Metro with Chris and bought all the goodies needed to make a little log cabin gingerbread house! Although we thought we would be working on the gingerbread house into the wee hours of the night, we actually had it all decorated and beautiful pretty quickly! After a couple hours of decorating with the awesome Leafs game on in the background we had created my dream gingerbread log cabin! It was so adorable, I'm kind of obsessed with it and want to become miniature so I can live in it forever! If you haven't made a gingerbread house this year yet, just stop by your local Metro and make a dream gingerbread house of your own!

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Listening To:

Timber Timbre - Magic Arrow