Beauty and Taste

Creating great food involves getting taste, texture and colour just right so that it is pleasing to the palate as well as to the eye of the beholder. This holds true whether you are making greek pasta salad or cupcake toppers.  

Something I quite enjoy doing is creating fun, colourful and tasty components to kids food.   These little cupcake toppers were made for a special little girl in my life.   She had a Bubble Guppie phase that called for a special treat on her birthday.  They are made of royal icing   (egg whites, icing sugar, food color and a little flavour extract just to make them tasty as well as pretty.)  The treats are a great way to show some TLC.   

• A Few hints for these toppers: 
• Start a few days ahead, they will need time to dry. 
• Make sure you set them up in a place that will not be disturbed or on cookie sheets that can be moved. 
• If you are doing an image that can be traced or found as a colouring book page - great.   Find it, shrink it to size and print multiple copies. 
• I created these on a thin parchment placed over the images and simply traced the black outlines. 
• The outlines need to be very dry before the coloured fillings are added.   
• For the filling colours use extracts or oils for flavour - they are intense and will not dilute or discolour the icing. 
• Make sure all air bubbles are removed - they show up when dried.
• The face down portion of the image will be clearest.   If your outlines are neatly done, the rest is filling in with the appropriate colour. 
• Have fun

      

Finding Fillings

It is my slow season, or relatively slow any way.  This is the time of year I get to play with menu items and experiment in the kitchen.  Right now I am working on this summer's appetizer selections.  I have a wonderful base shell. It is a cross between a Yorkshire pudding and a cream puff. It bakes up beautifully and keeps very well in the freezer. It can hold its taste and texture despite heat and moist fillings.  Right now  I am on the look out for fillings.
My immediate favourites are:

1. Lemon cream with smoked salmon,  
2. Cream cheese, ranch, Knorr vegetable medley,
3. Spinach & artichoke with cream cheese

I welcome suggestions. Watch my posts for images of these and other fillings.  The recipes that make the menu will be posted.

Beet Salad

 I find that people either love beets or they avoid them.   This wonderful dish has a great combination of textures, taste and a suprise kick.  If you love beets, or if you think you could be converted give this a try. It is a recipe that calls for seconds.

INGREDIENTS

5 medium beets

1 granny smith or delicious apple

1/3 cup pistacios (optional)

1/2cup olive oil

2 Tbsp Dijon mustard

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

2 Tbsp horse radish

Boil the beets until tender.  Peel and cut into 3/4 inch pieces.

Core and cut the apple into bite sized wedges.

Using a whisk combine the oil, vinegar and mustard until emulsified.

Toss the prepared apple and beets in the dressing.   Add the horseradish and toss once more.

Serve immediately with a sprinkle of pistacios as a garnish.

The salad presentation is best fresh.  It is fine the next day as well but the apple will have absorbed the beet colour so the contrast of colours will be much less noticable.

Note:    If you want a very intense colour in your beets, then roast them whole with a little olive oile and some thyme.  They take quite a bit of time, 1.5 hrs.   This part can be done a day ahead when you already have the oven on for other purposes.

 

 

 

 

Smoked Salmon with Lemon Cream on Pumpernickel Rounds

Smoked Salmon with Lemon Cream on Pumpernickel Rounds

 

These tasty little morsels are a real delight to the taste and texture buds.  The earthiness of the pumpernickel with the freshness of lemon zest and cream cheese accompany the delightful taste of smoked salmon beautifully.   Prepare to enjoy.

 

INGREDIENTS:

 

1 brick cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream
Zest of 1/2 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
Pumpernickel bread slices ( ( use the dark, thinly sliced pumpernickel baked fresh from "Buns Master")
Smoked salmon, cut in small pieces
Chopped fresh dill, or Chives

Instructions:

Step 1: Whisk cream cheese and sour cream in a bowl. Season to taste with lemon zest, salt and pepper.
Step 2: Make 1-1/2" cutouts in the bread with a cookie cutter and arrange on a platter.
Step 3: Pipe some of the creamed mixture on each cutout of bread, top with smoked salmon and chopped dill or chives.


Super easy.    Very tasty.   They disappear every time. 

Caramelized Onions With Ice Wine Reduction

Caramelized Onions With Ice Wine Reduction

makes 2 cups
2 1/2 pounds of onions
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon neutral oil (I use canola  or sunflower)
2-4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 cup white wine (Riesling, Videl or Ice Wine)
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Trim the tops and root ends of the onions and cut in half from top to bottom. Lay one half on the surface of a cutting board and cut the onion lengthwise following the grain of the onion. This will help the onion soften but not disintegrate. Repeat with remaining onions.

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the oil and butter. Add the onions and stir to coat the onions in the oil and butter. Sauté for 10 minutes.  Add the garlic.  Season with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and cook for 1 hour stirring occasionally. Do not be tempted to increase the heat. The long and slow cooking softens the onions before they can be caramelized. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring frequently, until browned and caramelized, about 25-30 minutes. De-glaze the pan with 1/4 cup  wine, scraping up any browned bits. Continue to cook until the liquid has evaporated. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper. Enjoy!

We do this in very large batches, the process is the same.   Watch carefully to prevent scorching and cover in between stirring with large batches to aid in the heat retention.

We serve these with a variety of meats.   To date the favourite dishes to have these tasty bits on are roast beef sliders with roasted red pepper and caramelized onions, and our ever famous roasted pork (porchetta  or roasted whole pig) .

Caramelized onions are great on and in all sorts of things.   Any roasted meat is  enhanced by them.   They are great in or on mashed potatoes, green beans, or even in ground meat mixtures.   The flavour is marvellous. 

Caramelized onion on Roasted Porchetta with PigOut Signature BBQ Sauce. (Using Magnotta Videl Ice Wine)

Antipasto Skewers

As a caterer I am always looking for new ways of using the same old ingredients. Last summer I got tired of throwing away left over items from antipasto trays. People ask for antipasto trays and there are inevitably items on the tray that they do not eat. They are either too messy, just not desireable or they don't quite know how to tackle them. After one of my customers asked for a skewer menu of small appetizers. They wanted something larger than an amuse-bouche and smaller than a tranditional appetizer. Voila, the antipasto skewer was developed. It solved the problem of selection of ingredients, mess and choice making. It provided a lovely couple of mouth fulls of something that both satisfied and got the appetite going. The parsley in it solved the problem of stong ingredients' impact on the stomach and one's breath. It brought something that had a sense of disorder and caused some confusion into lovely, tasty order. These little morsels are a favourite. I have had people say they were the tastiest they had ever had, that they made them hungry just looking at them. They loved the solution to the mess, the plate, the choice making and the unwieldy ingredients.

 

INGREDIENTS

(base quantities on the number of skewers desired)

Hungarian Salami (one slice per)

Capicola (hot or mild) (one slice per)

Black Olives Pitted,  Green Olives with Pimento, Spiced Green Olives, Sweet Pickles (thick slice) (two from this selection per skewer)

Bocconcini (1.5 cm diameter - marinated in Sun Dried Tomato Salad Dressing for at least an hour- one for every two depending on your construction)

Cheese Tortellini (cooked then drained and marinated in Sun Dried Tomato Salad Dressing for at least 1 hour)

Sun Dried Tomato Salad Dressing

Bunch Parsley

Bamboo Skewers 3 to 4 inches long

 

I skewer them as follows:

Olive or pickle, parsley, meat, tortellini or bocconcini,parsley, meat, olive or cheese

 

May be made a day ahead if securely wrapped.

 

Caution:

Sweet pickles do not stay on the skewer well as a final ingredient.

Extremely tasty, sampling may be required.