Savour Simcoe

Last weekend I got to attend Savour Simcoe, a great food event put on by Simcoe County Farm Fresh and featuring the producers and purveyors here in Simcoe County. 

 

We tend to get a little overlooked up here in cottage country, overshadowed by our close proximity to the big city delights to be found in Toronto. But we've got some pretty damn happenin' food related goodness going on around here too. Plus, guess where much of that yumminess folks are enjoying in the big city is coming from? There's certainly no farm land left in the urban sprawl on the shores of Lake Ontario!

Farm Fresh asked me to take some pictures of the food featured at the event. I pretty much jumped at the chance. 

The day was beautiful, with booths scattered throughout the historical outdoor exhibits at Simcoe County Museum. Restaurants and purveyors were partnered with local producers whose product they used to create yummy, yummy dishes for us food sluts. It was a perfect way to showcase our area. 

The North Restaurant produced a tasty and incredibly beautiful lamb dish with help from their partner Sunnidale Farms

These guys were kept incredibly busy all day serving the starving masses.

I kept coming back to the booth belonging to Cravings Fine Food & Catering 

 and their partners Algonquin Angus Beef

 and Valley Farm Market

Their display was very vibrant and inviting and I was having a blast snapping pictures.

Cravings pulled out two separate dishes for the event. The first was a sort of deconstructed perogie of spelt with a cauliflower puree in the place of potato, smoked brisket and smoked bacon and carmelized onion.

It was really tasty. The spelt had a wonderful texture and like any successful "deconstruction" attempt, the individual elements all combined in your mouth to give you a great taste memory of the original dish (check me out using big foodie terms! I'm feeling fancy.)

 Their second dish was a meatloaf served with a corn, bean and carrot succotash, creamed potatoes and a roasted tomato ketchup. I'm drooling just writing out the description.

Nice, no?

They had a challenge keeping up with demand.

Just for a little variety, here's a shot of some of the lovely local beverage on offer

It was a hot day. I couldn't drink wine. I was not pleased. I sucked on my water bottle and sulked.

Pinehouse Farms was partnered with Portage Bistro. Together they offered a beautiful little bundle of fresh greens topped with a fresh dressing as well as a dumpling and a cold soup.

Era 67 Restaurant and Lounge paired with Ego's Farm Market on a stew with a choice of fresh toppings.

Please enjoy as I continue to inundate you with still more images of goodness from Savour Simcoe.

soy lemon salmon with shitake mushrooms

SeaBass and I first had a version of this dish the year we lived in Halifax, NS. I took him out to a Teppanyaki restaurant for his birthday (totally cheesy but fun...and yummy) and we both fell in love with this salmon dish.

Have I ever told you about our year in Halifax? How we got together as a summer fling at home in Toronto (I had no interest in anything serious knowing I was returning to school in Nova Scotia) and then, come September, SeaBass totally followed me out east...at which point I couldn't seem to get rid of him. So we moved in together after approximately three months of dating and five years later here we are. Still stuck together.

It's a love story for the ages really.

Anyhoo, since that birthday celebration I've come back to this salmon recipe time and time again. It has good memories attached to it but mostly it's just damned tasty. The salmon is sauteed in soy sauce in lemon juice, making it salty and sweet and tangy all at once. The tender, flaky flesh of the salmon absorbs the flavours of the soy and lemon but holds on to its own character at the same time. 

The shitake mushrooms are prepared basically the same way, sliced and then sauteed in soy and lemon, with a little butter thrown in at the last minute if you're feeling indulgent.

This is one of my more interpretive recipes - mostly because it's never actually occurred to me to stop and measure out the amount of soy sauce that I'm using - but also because I personally like my salmon heavier on the lemon that SeaBass does.

He's salty, I'm tangy. We balance each other out.

So, here's the loose recipe. Please play with it and make it work for you.

Soy, Lemon Salmon with Shitake Mushrooms

1 tbsp olive oil

2 salmon fillets (skin removed)

1-2 cloves garlic finely diced

1 cup soy sauce

juice of 1-2 lemons

dozen shitake mushrooms

butter optional

Heat saute pan with 1/2 tbsp olive oil.

Add minced garlic.

Add salmon.

Pour 1/2 cup-3/4 cup soy sauce over salmon and into saute pan.

Add juice from 1 lemon.

Saute salmon on med. heat for approx 5 mins on one side.

Watch soy and lemon juice to  ensure it is not cooking down too much - you want to stay very liquid in the pan.

Add more soy and lemon if necessary - taste to be sure you're happy with the combination.

Turn salmon over and continue to saute until cooked through.

Allow the soy and lemon juices to cook down at this point.

Spoon the thickening liquid over top of the salmon as it is thickening.

Remove salmon from pan.

Mushrooms

Slice shitakes.

Heat saute pan with 1/2 tbsp olive oil.

Add mushrooms to pan.

Add remaining soy sauce and lemon juice to pan.

Saute mushrooms until cooked through.

Serve with salmon.

more babble and some actual cooking (muxi pork)

My creative juices have been frozen. I haven't been cooking as much as I normally do let alone writing about cooking as much as I normally do. 

I'm not sure exactly why that is. I believe it has something to do with the time of year. 

Good god, could we please get some fresh, local veggies around these parts? 

No? It's still far too early? This crazy spring of ours has not finished fooling with us yet and tomorrow there is a chance of flurries?

Alright then, I think I'll just go back to bed 'til mid June-ish.

I'm still eating my wild leeks constantly - also SeaBass is getting really fed up with the pervasive garlic-iness that surrounds me. I think it might be doing serious damage to our relationship.

And now excuse me as I take a small blogging break to snack on a cracker with leek pesto.

Don't judge me!

I've had no luck in my hunt for morels, which I'm blaming on our very strange spring. It's been very dry, alternately very warm and very cold and very unpredictable. Mother nature is quite obviously enjoying herself messing with our vulnerable little human emotions; chuckling as we all get excited about gardens and planting and days in the sun and then falling on the floor laughing as she yanks the rug out from under us with another cold snap.

Basically I'm feeling a little lost in limbo. Sensing the abundance of fresh summer produce just around the corner is making it difficult for me to cook with what is here now.

All that being said, the last time I was down in the big city visiting the in-laws - a lovely day trip of the sort that causes me to

a) lose sleep

b) pop anxiety meds

c) bury myself deep in consecutive glasses of wine

I made sure to take a little of the edge off the visit (you know, in case the valium and alcohol weren't doing the job) by making a stop at a nearby Asian grocery store.

While I have definitely noticed a kind of cosmopolitan shift around here in the time since we moved up here, soy sauce and rice noodles are often the most Asian ingredients I'm likely to find at local stores.)

I could have spent a good hour (and a good hundred dollars) roaming through the store but SeaBass was keeping me on a tight schedule so I limited myself to a few dried ingredients that I've been wanting to try.

My favourite ingredient so far?

Yep, dried lily flowers also known as Golden Needles for their beautiful yellow colour. 

They are the dried buds of the day lily and add great texture and  taste to traditional Chinese stir fries and soups. 

You simply reconstitute the dried flowers in hot water and they are ready to be added to any dish.

I find them slightly earthy with a burst of tart almost vinegary hit in the reconstituted bud.

I wanted to make something very traditional as my first dish featuring the lilies. I always like to start that way with a new ingredient, it gives me an idea of where the ingredient comes from, its role in tradition and history. Once I'm comfortable with the history of an ingredient I'm ready to make it my own.

Right, so enough babbling about what I'm sure is my ever so intriguing food tendencies ('cause obviously I totally know what the hell I'm talking about.) Back to the food.

The first thing I made with my bounty of lilies was Muxi (Moo Shoo) Pork. 

I actually made it twice. SeaBass loved it so much he made me cook it for him again the next day (sometimes I feel like I'm in a relationship with an 8 year old picky eater!)

I can't really blame him though. The lily flowers were a harmonious part of the dish but definitely their own texture and level of flavour to the end results.

As with all Chinese recipes it is important to get all your prep done ahead of time and be totally prepared when you start the cooking, 'cause although the ingredient looks long and the recipe might at first appear complicated, it's actually very simple. And things move incredibly quickly once you get the ball rolling.

Muxi Pork

1/2 lb. pork tenderloin

Marinade for Tenderloin

2 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp dry sherry

1 tsp sugar

2 tsp cornstarch

Stir Fry Sauce

3 tbsp water

3 tbsp chicken broth

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp dry sherry

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp corn starch

Stir Fry

handful shitake mushrooms

1 portabello mushroom (or handful crimini)

2 tbsp dried lily flowers

1/2 cup bamboo shoots (rinse if canned)

2 green onions finely chopped

2 thin slices ginger cut into strips

2 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

6 tbsp oil for frying

1 tsp sesame oil

Mix together all marinade ingredients - *add cornstarch last.

Cut tenderloin into thin strips and cover with marinade.

Marinate for 30 mins.

Mix together sauce ingredients - add cornstarch last. Set aside.

Cover lily buds with hot water and allow to soak for 30 minutes.

After 30 mins. drain the lily flowers and remove any hard tips from them. Set aside.

Beat eggs with salt and set aside.

Heat wok over medium. 

Add 2 tbsp. oil.

Add beaten eggs and scramble until firm.

Remove eggs from wok.

Wipe down wok.

Add 2 tbsp oil back to wok.

When oil is hot, add ginger and fry until aromatic.

Add pork and stir fry until almost cooked through.

Remove pork from work.

Add 2 tbsp. oil to wok.

When hot add mushrooms and lily buds.

Stirfry for one minute.

Push ingredients to side of wok.

Stir the sauce you set aside and add to wok.

Stir sauce quickly to thicken.

Add pork back to wok.

Add scrambled egg.

Add green onion.

Mix all ingredients together.

Serve with hoisin sauce on top of rice or mandarin pancakes.

* As cornstarch is a thickening agent, if you add it to your sauce  before any other ingredient you will not get the texture and taste you are looking for.

Lily buds 

and simple stir fries 

make me happy.

what's harder than the first christmas?

Christmas was difficult but maybe made easier by the haze of grief that still covered every waking moment and allowed a shield of numbness to protect me from the pain of Mom's absence. 

That fog of initial grief has lifted a little now what with the coming of spring, the return of longer days and brighter sunshine penetrating through the emotional darkness. 

With spring also comes my first birthday without Mom and this I am finding much more difficult than the holiday season.

 My mother was all about birthdays. 

Even more so in the last few years I think. She insisted on cooking our favourite Mommy meals for birthday dinner and providing our favourite birthday cake (or Mommy made pie in my case) for dessert.

My brother's birthday was the first without Mom. 

It was just last month and so also came without the easy cloak of encompassing grief to protect all of us. 

I tried my best to fill in for Mom. I pulled out Her recipe for lasagna and stressed and fretted that I would somehow screw it up and we would feel Her absence even more through a botched attempt at pasta impersonation.

I made sure we had store bought garlic bread and Baskin-Robbins chocolate and peanut butter cake for dessert.

Mom's lasagna recipe is more Irish-Canadian than Italian and store bought garlic bread is an aberration to my "from scratch" sensibilities. But on birthdays that was never the point.

The point was Mom's cooking. It was the love that came through Her food. It was the joy She took in having Her children with Her on the anniversary of the day She welcomed them into the world.

There is no one here to attempt to make Mom's pizza for me today; to bake me birthday pie.

No one is remembering April 28th 32 years ago and all the April 28th's since.

It might be selfish, but maybe today I have a right to be. Mom would think so.

My birthday is more difficult than Christmas.

Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Foraged Food Feast

We are lucky enough here in central Ontario to be surrounded by the ultimate in wild foods. Fiddleheads, wild leeks and morels are all native to the area and are easily found if you're willing to put in a little time and effort for the search. Personally, I am totally willing!

This is my first year going out on "forage" and I am totally in love with it. There is something so fulfilling about spending an hour of my day picking the food that I will use for supper that night. My hope was that all three of the mighty edible trilogy of leeks, fiddleheads and morels would be available in time for this post but, you can't rush mother nature, and so we'll have to do without morels. Never fear though, I promise to write another post when they become available.

Saturday afternoon SeaBass and I headed out to the magical neighbourhood forest, grower of all things yummy. Interestingly I seem to be the only one aware of the goodness to be found amongst the trees. Not that I'm complaining...I've taken a rather proprietary stance on the forest in fact.

We headed for an open patch of fiddleheads first and sifted through the layers of leaves to find the tiny, unfurled baby ferns.

 This is what you're looking for in a fiddlehead; tightly furled with a nice stem and a bright green colour. When it comes time to cook them you will brush away any brown fuzz first before doing anything else.

My friendly neighbourhood forest is absolutely blanketed in wild leeks right now. I hop from patch to patch picking a few from each one so that I don't overpick any one area. Just starting to blossom now, and popping up in amongst the fields of leeks are Ontario's official flower, the Trillium. My sources tell me that when the trilliums are in full bloom, the morels will be ready. Unfortunately we have a little ways to go, only about 20 percent of the trilliums have blossomed so far.

We also spent time on Saturday collecting edible trout lilies. Their tender leaves, shoots and flowers are wonderful on their own or in salad. 

After a peaceful afternoon wandering the forest, I laid our bounty out on the table and came up with some plans for our Foraged Feast. 

 The most important thing to me was showcasing the each wild food on it's own, prepared as simply as possible and then including each ingredient in a larger, more elaborate dish.

The trout lilies are so delicate, with a sweet, fresh sweet pea like flavour that I chose to leave them raw and whole and simply dress them to serve as a salad.

With dandelions we collected I made a cream of dandelion soup topped with raw dandelion flowers and dandelion flower fritters. 

The dandelion greens gave the soup a nice bitterness that was balanced by the cream and the slight sweetness of the fritter.

I love the combination of fiddleheads and wild leeks together. I made a light tart with the two. 

While the tart was good (I think SeaBass ate half of it) I have to say that when it comes to wild foods, I really prefer to eat them as simply as possible and without a lot of other ingredients.

Except for pesto.

I have an obsession with leek pesto.

I'm looking in to a 12 step program to help me but in the meantime, I just keep eating pesto. Our guests are lucky I shared any on Saturday. It was not easy seeing my pesto on another's plate!

Back to simplicity.

I sauteed fiddleheads and leeks together, loving the garlicky flavour the leeks lend to the fiddleheads and the slight asparagus note lent to the leeks.

The sauteed veggies accompanied the main course, quail in cream and more wild leeks.

This was a great combination. The rich meat of the quail soaked up the flavours of butter, cream and the strong onion and garlic of the leeks. The leeks cooked down into the quail and into every level of the dish. We couldn't stop eating the yummy little birds. They were the perfect end note for the meal.

Spring is an amazing time of the year. It feels to me like mother nature might be apologizing for the harsh winter. Maybe she's celebrating everything coming back to life. Whatever the reason, I am so glad that I have woken up to all the amazing things around me. 

I've never eaten so well before, or taken so much pleasure in knowing that I have seen my food ripen from a seedling in the snow covered ground to a delicious ingredient on my plate.

two words: wild leeks.

After a week consisting of a horrendous stomach flu, followed by a tremendous head cold; both of which left me so lacking in appetite that even No Reservations could not entice my taste buds to salivate - I am finally back in the land of the food obsessed.

One thing kept me going, kept me hoping every day that I would wake up with a growly stomach once more.

Leeks.

Yes, my wild leeks are ready. My secret location is filled with patches of vibrant green shoots sending up wafts of oniony goodness.

The only thing I've eaten since my recovery is leeks. SeaBass keeps complaining that I smell but I insist that it's helping my sinuses.

Leek pesto, leek and potato soup, sauteed leeks.

Did I mention the leek pesto? I've made huge batches of it three times already.

Maybe SeaBass has a point about the smell? I can't tell. My nose is still stuffy from the cold.

If you get your hands on any wild leeks do yourself a favour and make a simple pesto. Eat it like a dip, use it as a pasta sauce, top a pizza with it.

Wild Leek Pesto

leeks

whipping cream

toasted pine nuts

olive oil

parmiggiano reggiano

I'm not going to give you any proportions here because it really depends on how strong your leeks are and if you want a milder or more oniony pesto.

Tip: When I used the pesto as a pasta sauce, I blended in some sun dried tomatoes to add a touch of mild sweetness to the sauce.

oh glorious food foraging find...and a little something for those of you who like it dirty

I know I have been a neglectful blogger these last several days. And I apologize.

I have in fact eaten more than one meal and have neglected to take photos or post. Again I apologize.

However, in my defense, I will say that I did intend to post photos and dutifully recount the experience. Unfortunately all the food went mysteriously missing before I could complete my mission.

Ironically, I think I may have put on a few pounds since last I spoke to you. Weird.

I would like to tell you (minus photographic evidence) about the pho I made this weekend. We are lacking pho in these parts and I had a craving. So, totally unwilling to say "no" to my belly I embarked on my first ever adventure in pho.

After some in depth interweb-y research (read: drooling as I sifted through multiple recipes and made a random determination based on gut instinct. No really, I use the stomach growling effects as an effective measure of the impressiveness of a recipe.) I used Jaden from Steamy Kitchen's recipe.

It was well touted as the best home made pho recipe to be found. Seeing as how I haven't tried any other recipes I can't say whether it's the best, but I can say it more than satisfied my craving. It surpassed many a restaurant pho. It was beefy but light and clean. I left in the silky marrow from my soup bones and slurped every last bit of it with mouthfuls of just cooked, thin sliced steak and the typical accoutrements.

I will be making it again very, very soon.

Next time I promise not to gobble before snapping pics.

What does any of this have to do with the title of this post?

Nothing. I just wanted to share. And apologize.

Now on to more post related babbly bits.

Since the snow has melted 'round here I've been on the lookout.

I've been looking for wild leeks.

I was told that the forest near my house was of a magical sort, full of foraging goodness.

I've been searching and searching, with no sign.

I started to think I was crazy, started to think I imagined being told of the magic amongst the trees. Started to think some bastard had lied to me.

And then today. Glorious, wondrous today! There they were suddenly.

Tiny, tightly furled green heads poking up from amongst the heavy layer of discarded leaves that make up the forest floor.

I was overwhelmed by garlicky, oniony goodness just brushing aside the leaves and debris.

And they weren't just in one spot. I was picking them out everywhere.

Isolated patches of them

Larger swathes of them

Yummy, delicious, once a year, limited time offer wild leeks. Just waiting for me to pluck them from their soil beds and give their lives meaning (at least that's how I choose to think of it.)

Can you tell that I'm excited?

Seriously, since the snow has melted I've been out there in that damn forest, poking about, searching in vain for signs of these guys. And I got 'em. Hooray for me!

And now let's talk about what else my daily trips to the forest have gotten me.

This

And this

And still more of this

The dogs have decided that mud puddles are, like, THE best things ever (or at least two of them have. Sugar and I prefer to tiptoe around giant piles of squishy gooeyness. 'Cause we're classy...and lady like.)

They take such joy in it though, it's hard to do anything but smile.

Especially when I can't stop thinking about wild veg....until I get home and it's time to get them clean (which must be done so we can get dirty again tomorrow!)