Breakfast Paella Recreation Attempt

There's this fantastic café in Vancouver called the Medina Cafe.  It has waffles with toppings that make you weep with happiness (orange & fig marmalade, milk chocolate & lavender, etc.) and coffee that's as good as anything found in Europe.  My husband and I ate most mornings there on the Vancouver leg of our honeymoon.

One of his choices was a breakfast paella that used curried orzo instead of saffron rice, and included tomato, avocado and a fried egg.  Not your average paella.  After having a couple weekdays off this past week, it made me realize how rare it is to eat breakfast out.  To me, it's more of an indulgence than a fancy dinner.  Maybe it's just because I usually feel so sluggish in the mornings that my usual breakfast is a peanut butter & jam sandwich, or a naan bread toasted with cinnamon sugar on it (eaten on the go, the both of them) or something I pick up at work and eat at my desk.

Anyhow.  This morning I set out to recreate the breakfast paella.  Here's how it turned out:

I boiled up the orzo, shook a bit of curry powder and a small touch of garam masala on it, then stirred it up.  Added avocado, tomato and some roasted red peppers (from a jar), then some crispy bacon and corn.  I'm not a huge fan of corn, but I tossed it in the frying pan after the bacon (after draining most of the fat out) and it toasted nicely with a lovely flavour.  Bacon is a miracleworker. 

Now, I only ate half of this, or I would have burst, but it turned out very nicely indeed.  The bacon was actually a substitute for the chorizo sausage that is near impossible to find here, and there was no fried egg on top, but it was a very good and very filling reproduction to start the day with.

Baked Fish Pasta

I was feeling experimental on Monday night.  After picking up some haddock on Saturday's grocery run, I sautéed up two onions, one garlic clove, a handfull of fresh dill chopped, and threw in some bottled mushrooms (a great discovery at a local Italian import place) and tinned (drained) artichoke hearts, quartered.  Once all mixed up in the pan, I threw the mixture in with some half-cooked pasta, then tossed in the uncooked chunks of haddock.  Everything then was thrown into a couple of casserole dishes, and I used up some leftover bechamel from a week or so ago (thinned it out with some milk) by pouring it over everything.  Covered in aluminum foil, thrown in the oven at 450 for 20 min, and it was done.

Experimenting  usually either turns out great or comes out slightly disappointing.  I confess - it came out slightly disappointing. But wait!  It was kind of fixable!  First off, I definitely could have cooked it a touch longer (I was worried about overcooking the fish, but that didn't seem to be an issue) to have the flavours mix together more.  Second, it needed salt (easily remedied).  Finally, I could have added a whole different dimension by covering it in lemon slices before baking it.  I fixed this by simply squeezing some lemon juice on at the end.  Not the same, but ah well.  Once these tweaks were done, the dish was pretty solid.


The finished product:

A Big-ass Breakfast

There's something about Sunday mornings/afternoons that just begs a big-ass breakfast or brunch.  So when I got home from church and looked in the fridge, I was ready to rock.  I did a good ol' British fry-up, but I did try to make it a little healthier.  So I chopped up the rest of the cilantro and did up some scrambled eggs, nice and soft (make 'em on a low to medium heat and stir constantly), then along with it some sautéed shiitake and some baked beans.  Cut some toast up in pretty little strips, and tada!

If that doesn't fill you up, what will?

What's with all the carrots?

I've fallen into bad habits.  I had four very stout carrots sitting in the fridge from last weekend's grocery run, and hadn't done a thing with them.  So tonight, searching for something light and vegetably to eat, I decided to tackle one of Jamie Oliver's salad recipes.

Now, anyone who knows me is aware of my distaste for most salads - especially when lettuce or greens are involved.  But in Mr. Oliver's lovely book was a recipe for a carrot salad that looked quite tasty.  But here's where my bad habits come in.  I didn't have mandarin oranges.  That's it - that's the extent of my sin.  So I improvised.

May I present to you: Heather's carrot salad.

It consists of grated carrot, fresh chopped cilantro, prunes, sesame seeds and dressed with an emulsion of lime juice and walnut oil.  Walnut oil is so my flavour of the month.


It turned out quite nicely.  Quite nicely indeed.  It's hard to stick to recipes when experiments turn out like this.


(ADDED)

My husband is still raving about it today, and he insisted I write the full recipe down somewhere so he can replicate it.  Here we go:

salad:
4 large carrots, peeled
handful of fresh cilantro leaves
3 prunes
handful of sesame seeds

dressing:
1 lime, juiced
twice as much Walnut Oil

Grate the carrots into a big bowl.  I don't like cilantro stems, so I pull the leaves off first, then chop them up.  Throw them in the bowl too.  Halve the prunes lengthwise then slice them finely into strips (half a cm wide).  I find that throwing the prune bits in little by little and tossing along the way is best, so that they don't stick to each other.  Toss in the sesame seeds.  Mix the whole thing up with your hands.  To make the dressing, combine the juice and oil in a little jar or plastic container and shake vigourously.  Once well mixed, drizze two or three tablespoonsworth over the salad.  Toss to coat.  And you're done!

Indian Curry - where have you been all my life?

Okay, so I've had Indian before.  I've really enjoyed it.  My residence-mates and I used to look forward to Butter Chicken night at Fung (our University dining hall) whenever it came around.  And I've had it in restaurants occasionally - Toronto has such excellent options...

But this is the first time I've cooked it.  And it's all thanks to Jamie Oliver.

See, I've just bought the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution Cookbook, and it challenges you to learn one recipe from each chapter by heart and then teach it to four more willing victims people.  More than a challenge, actually - it wants you to pledge. 

Long story short, I haven't pledged yet, but I did decide today would be a good time to try one of the recipes.  I decided to branch out from my usual improv dinner to Pork Korma.  I picked up some fresh cilantro, a no-antibiotic pork tenderloin, some Patak curry paste and natural yoghurt at Sobeys, and put rice on the minute I got home.

Result: a flavour Eden.  How on earth did I forget that Indian food tastes this good?