Some Previous Restaurant Reviews

I’m having some griefs with links and pages.  Here are Three Restaurant Reviews:

Baked Expectations

Daly Burgers – Corydon

Hermano’s

Enjoy! :D

Flour’s Famous Banana Bread

When outside looks like this:

And the temperature is indicating minus 27 degrees, there isn’t much motivation to venture outside.  Sure the snow looks gorgeous and pearly, but there’s gotta be more of an incentive than mother nature’s picture perfect good looks.

It’s times like these where I want the house to be emanating with wonderful, homey aromas.  And maybe if I’ve done a good job, woodland creatures will be knocking at my door to check out my piece de resistance.

A year ago, Bob was wondering what to do with the brown bananas that were looking forlorn on our kitchen table.  He decided to take the plunge and make banana bread.  Out of all the recipes on the internet, he stumbled upon Flour’s Famous Banana Bread.  For us, it is The best banana bread recipe out there.  My mum is more of a fan of a lighter version of banana bread where she whips the egg whites separately and folds them into the batter.  I prefer banana bread because I enjoy its hearty density.

Flour’s Famous Banana Bread

Ingredients

• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup oil
• 3 1/2 bananas, very ripe, mashed
• 2 tablespoons creme fraiche or sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped

Directions

Set oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom of a loaf pan with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Beat sugar and eggs with a whisk until light and fluffy, about 10 minutes. Drizzle in oil. Add mashed bananas, creme fraiche, and vanilla. Fold in dry ingredients and nuts. Pour into a lined loaf pan and bake for about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

I know that the egg beating time is a little on the longer side, but if you have a stand mixer it’ll do most of the work for you.  I have a stand mixer, but the professional grade mixing bowl that it comes with is too big for such a small batch.  So, I used my little hand mixer and it does the job just fine.  Plus The Mummy Returns was on tee vee today so I just popped that on the tube and watched that while I beat the eggs and sugar together.

Today I used a mini bread loaf pan and the final product is looking pretty good.  I’m feeling great about making something so healthy today because lunch consisted of two donuts and bacon.  Ugh.

Thinking about farmers…

I was watching Chef at Home with Michael Smith some time last year and he brought up that vegetables and fruits being mass produced with pesticides is a relatively new phenomenon.  Of course!  In a way, it was one of those “Captain Obvious” statements.  But the fact that it was said translates that a lot of people forget about this.  I’ll admit that I’ve certainly forgotten.  Prior to the chemical generation of farming, eating locally, seasonally and organically was the norm.  What’s happened?

Increased demand by consumers for more produce all year round at cheaper prices.  Increased competition by big farm conglomerates.  Decreased government aid.  What should be a commendable and rewarding job has become increasingly difficult to sustain when you’re a farmer.  If you can’t feed your own family, how do you expect to feed everyone else?

Ideally, I think everyone would like to eat locally, seasonally, and organically.  But what do you do if you can’t?  What are your options if you live in northern Canada, for example?  I don’t think that flora on the tundra would be all that appetizing.

I remember last year I made the statement that I would love to be a farmer or a cheesemaker.  Probably one of the most honest livings you can make but probably one of the worst in terms of personal and financial reward.  Like philosophy is one of the nobler things to learn in school.  But you don’t get paid to be a philosopher these days.

Long post longer, if you have ten minutes to spare, check out this egg farmer video with Mike Rowe.  Love Dirty Jobs and yes I think he’s handsome, but that has nothing to do with food.

Rot’n Cheese

A couple of years ago. Wait, I think it’s been longer than that.

Several years ago, a group of us decided to start a supper club. Every month, one of us would choose a restaurant that we wanted to try and we’d go out as a group. I can honestly say, it lasted for about five months until we realized that none of us had much time, or money for that matter, to spare.

The first restaurant we had gone to was Luce, an Italian restaurant on Corydon. I’m not sure how long ago it closed down, but in its place is a new sushi restaurant. The Winnipeg Free Press’s Marion Warhoft raved that it was really good. So, in the middle of one January several years ago, we went to try out this new joint. Long story longer, none of us was really impressed by it.

I had ordered a deluxe mac ‘n cheese. Supposedly, it had four cheeses. Supposedly, it was a flavour explosion in my mouth and I wouldn’t want any other.  Supposedly, it was going to improve my eyesight and clarity.  Yeah, none of those things happened.  In fact, my eye sight’s gotten considerably worse.  But that’s another story for another day.

Mac ‘n cheese should be one of the ultimate  comfort foods: creamy, cheesy, artery-clogging goodness. Tonight, I made one of my usual homemade mac ‘n cheese bakes. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any elbow macaroni and had to use rotini instead, hence the rot’n cheese.

This is one of the rarest of incidences where I don’t use a recipe.  I’m pretty sure I messed up the science but it works for me so I’m not knockin’ it.

I start with a bechamel.
[I usually use salted butter and melt it over medium heat (I should note that I use medium heat on my stove top because anything higher will burn the butter too quickly.  I suggest you become intimate with your stove top, if you know what I mean *wink wink nudge nudge*).  Then I add almost the same amount in flour and wait until I get this "nutty" aroma.  That usually takes about several minutes.  Then I add milk and cream, whisk together until the mixture thickens.  If you prefer a more precise way of making a bechamel, here is Mario Batali's version.]

Afterwards I add some Cheez-Whiz and whatever grated cheese I have handy.  Today, I only had some mozzarella.  Add some salt and pepper to taste and your cheese sauce is done.  Half the battle is over.  Boil some pasta and then mix in the cheese sauce.

Tonight, I decided to make it into a bake.  I didn’t have any bread crumbs so I combined Rice Krispies, parmesan, oregano and fresh time.  Scooped the rot ‘n cheese into four individual cocottes and put the crumb mixture on top.  I baked at 425 Fahrenheit for about ten minutes.  Voila!  Homemade rot ‘n cheese bake.