Image via Bon Appetit / Coutesy of Jump Studios

Take a break on your hump day to fill up on some interesting food news! Rotten food delicacies, Jimmy Fallon, food stamp diets and more!

- Soon enough, we will all be able to drink beer under water: [Bon Appetit]

- Make sure your lunch is never stolen again with these ingenious lunch bags: [the.]

- Why the mysterious decline of the Honeybee population could have us paying more money for food: [MSNBC]

- Brush up on your BBQ skills with the Serious Eats steak grilling guide: [Serious Eats]

- Jimmy Fallon continues his streak of great impressions with Gordon Ramsey: [Foodista]

- How to not waste money and eat fresh fruit: [Yummly]

- One man’s vomit inducing rotten food is another man’s delicacy:  [Huffington Post]

- What happens when a rich, obese, world-famous chef eats on a food stamp diet for a week? He gets “really fucking hungry”: [Huffington Post]

- McDonald’s stock plummets as more people turn to eating real food: [The Onion]

See you Friday!

Photo by The Saucy Coq

When was the last time you used your melon baller? Yeah, me neither. But my wife brought home a 1 kg bucket of Medjool dates and I was reminded of this salad I made last summer for a lobster dinner party at a friend’s place and never got around to posting.

Cold, crispy watermelon tossed with sweet Medjool dates and salty pistachios. This salad is very refreshing, sweet, salty and substantial! The total package. Goes fantastically well with BBQs! If you don’t have a melon baller, you can just cube the melon. Don’t sweat it. I don’t think it looks as nice, but it will impress nonetheless. The rose water is optional, but it adds a nice perfume and summer flavour to the whole thing.

This salad comes from Heidi Swanson’s vegetarian cookbook called Supernatural Everyday. It’s one of my favourite cookbooks in regular rotation and I’ve never made anything from it that I didn’t love.

Once the watermelon is balled or cubed, put it together with the dates in a large bowl. Stir the salt into the lime juice in a separate bowl and then drizzle it across the melon and toss well.

Put the melon and dates in the fridge for at least an hour before you serve, but preferably two hours. The colder the better as the melon will crisp up!

Just before serving, turn the salad out into whatever serving bowl you’ll be using and sprinkle with the pistachios and rose water.

Eat with spicy BBQ meat, burgers, seafood, chicken…anything really!

Enjoy!

Photo by The Saucy Coq

When everyone at your next pot luck tells you you’re the Dos Equis man of culinary news, tell ‘em The Saucy Coq sent you. Food news from around the world:

- Crash course on using different salts for different purposes: (Lifehacker)

- One of the best blogs for staring at that I’ve come across: (Coffee and the Newspaper)

- If you’re not already using Foodspotting, you probably should be:  (Foodspotting)

- This still doesn’t mean that the $25 bucket of salty, oily popcorn at the movies is worth it, but we’re getting there: (Neatorama)

- In case you needed one more reason NOT to eat at McDonalds: (Huffington Post)

- Make cooking a little easier in your kitchen: (Lifehacker)

- I used to be the pickiest eater. Your kids can eat like the French, too! (The Star)

- Rotten food has never looked so beautiful:  (kpic)

- Don Draper would be proud of the genius food billboards: (Yummly)

See you soon!

Photo by The Saucy Coq

Thai food has been in heavy rotation in my kitchen since our recent 26 day trip through Thailand. This fried Tilapia has southern Thai influences with its heavy Turmuric marinade. Fresh chilies in fish sauce give it the salty, spicy kick that brings this to the next level!

In a small food processor or in your blender, combine the garlic, shallots, turmeric, sugar, pepper, salt, fish sauce and 1 tbsp of the oil. Grind to a fairly smooth paste, stopping to scrape the sides a couple of times. You could also do this the traditional way and smash it up in a mortar and pestle. Combine the fish fillets with the turmeric marinade, turning to coat and let that fish soak up the flavours for 20 minutes or so. You can leave this for up to a day if you want to prepare the fish ahead of time!

Next you’re going to want to coat the fillets with flour, which will give them this nice golden brown crust in the end. Take the fish from the marinade and try not to lose what is sticking to the fish. Pour the flour in to a baking dish or bowl and lay the fillets in there, turning to coat. Shake off the excess flour and place on a plate. Heat the remaining bit of oil in a skillet over medium high heat, but don’t let the oil smoke. You can tell it’s hot enough when a drop of the marinade sizzles immediately in the pan. Add the fish fillets and cook for 5-7 minutes total, turning once in the middle of cooking to get a nice crust on both sides. If your fillets are quite thick, you’ll have to cook a few minutes longer.

This fish does fantastically well with a simple bowl of fish sauce spiked with fresh chopped chilies. If you can find one or two of those little Thai Bird chilies (about an inch long), slice them thin and toss em a third of a cup of fish sauce. Dried red chilies will suffice if that is what’s on hand.

Serve with a squeeze of lime and say g’night.

I chose to serve salt & pepper broccoli as a side dish.

Photo by The Saucy Coq

“THIS IS NOT BUTTER” you might say if you were with a group of your snobby friends. Call it what you will, but this Pear Cardamom Butter is very, very good. Think apple sauce here, but more interesting.

You can make a butter from almost any fruit by just stewing it down with some liquid and sugar until it has reached a very thick consistency. Apple butter is likely the most common form, but this Pear Cardamom Butter is fantastic. You can have it with granola in the morning, serve it with pork chops or jerk chicken at dinner, or have it with peanut butter! What else would you use it for?

I found this recipe on www.shutterbean.com and tried it out last week to give to my sister for her birthday (Happy Bday Harmony!). I will definitely make it again, but might not cook it down so much as this recipe only gave me four (half-pint) jars full. I am not going to give a lesson on canning because there are much better teachers out there. Namely, Google.

I use my Dutch Oven for jams and sauces, but use whatever you’re used to. Get a nice heavy pot on the element and fill it with all of the great smelling things that you’ve prepped. Pears, lemon, sugar, salt and all of the spices. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Lower the heat, and continue to stir. You really want the pears to break down, so try helping them along after about 15 minutes with a wooden spoon or potato masher.

After about an hour, remove the pot from the heat and blend the pears with an immersion blender in the pot until you’ve reached the desired consistency. My immersion blender actually broke (albeit a year ago) so I just used my blender. Save yourself the mess and use an immersion blender if you can.

Return the pear butter to the heat, and simmer over medium-high heat for 20 minutes longer, or until butter mounds on a chilled spoon.

Ladle butter into sterilized jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Check for air bubbles, wipe the rims and seal.

Place the jars in boiling hot water for 10 minutes. Note that you really don’t have to have all of the proper canning tools to do this. I only preserve things every once in a while so I just stick with using regular pots, kitchen tongs and a funnel. The only important step is to be sure you sterilize the jars properly. There are many sites out there to read up on the canning process if you like.

If you’re going to make just a fraction of this recipe to use within a couple of days, you don’t have to worry about the jarring process. Spoon into a nice serving dish and enjoy the fruits of your labour! Yes, I went there.

I almost never make dessert because I’m not a baker of any sort. But, I lifted this plum and sloe gin sorbet from a Jamie Oliver cookbook I have and I couldn’t have been happier with the result. It takes only a handful of ingredients and a couple of simple steps to impress your guests!

Keep in mind that you could substitute pretty much any kind of fruit – paired with an appropriate fruit based liqueur – in the below recipe.

Sloe gin is a liqueur made with sloe (or blackthorn) berries, gin and a few additional flavours.

To make the sorbet, cut the plums in half and remove their pits. You are going to blend the plums with the other ingredients so putting them in the freezer first will give you a more slushy, less juicy texture for the sorbet. Place the plums in a freezer bag and put into the freezer for at least 2 hours or until frozen solid. An hour before you want to make your sorbet, put a serving dish into the freezer to get really cold.

Once you’re ready to roll, put the plums into a food processor with the orange zest, sugar and sloe gin and pulse until smooth. Scoop into your frozen bowl or dish and use a spatula to smooth out the surface. Throw that in to the freezer, and bingo bango!

Once you’re ready for a flavour explosion, remove the sorbet 5 to 10 minutes before serving so it softens slightly. Serve in big scoops, with a  swig of sloe gin over the top if you like.

Buccatini and meatballs is a classy spin on an old classic. I don’t think I’ve met anybody who does not like a good ol’ bowl of pasta and meatballs. For me, it’s one of those few meals that I crave if I go too long without. I guess that’s one of the defining characteristics of comfort foods in general…

But I have to say, this is one of the best bowls of pasta that I’ve had in a long time – at a restaurant or at home! In the past year or so, I’ve started to try and remember my favourite types of pasta. I still love the classics – spaghetti, linguini, penne – but there are so many interesting kinds, it’s easy to find a few other favourites.  If you can get your hands on buccatini, I would highly recommend it. It’s basically just like spaghetti but with a hole in the middle, making it a tube.

I almost always have some of this tomato sauce in my freezer. It’s a good starting point for a pasta dinners and marinara sauces and can just be defrosted the day before.

The meatballs can be made ahead of time to save some trouble, or just thrown together before you start cooking – my typical M.O. The lemon zest in the meatballs here really brightens up the pasta and works perfectly with the bit of heat from the chilies.

To make the meatballs, mix together all of the meatball ingredients and form in to large marble sized balls. As I’ve said before, unless you’re making meatloaf, you do not need to mix the meat too much. Just fold it over enough times to incorporate the ingredients. The more you smash up the meat and play with it, the more dense it will cook. The idea is to get tender meatballs that fall apart, not mini-meatloafs. The same goes for rolling them – just enough to shape them. To help them hold their shape and to help you roll them, run your hands under cold water every few meatballs.

Once you’ve rolled the meatballs, add a little olive oil to your pan of choice and heat over medium-high. Cook the meatballs until they are browned on all sides (about 6-8 minutes). It is not necessary to roll and shake the meatballs around constantly. You want each side to get some colour, which means letting it sit without moving. You only need to roll the meatballs around 3 or 4 times for this step. When finished, remove to a plate with paper towel while you deal with the sauce.

If you’re using dried pasta, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook to your liking. Buccatini, like all pasta, should be cooked to al dente.

Add the sliced mushrooms to the pan the meatballs were in and cook until softened, about 3 minutes. This is a good point to add more garlic if you’re so inclined. Otherwise, add your tomato sauce to the pan with the mushrooms and get your meatballs back in to the sauce. Allow the sauce to heat all the way through and wait until the meatballs are cooked through to turn off the heat, about another 8-10 minutes. Taste the sauce and adjust for seasoning if need be. You may want to add more salt, pepper or chili flakes to your taste.

Drain the buccatini and reserve a bit of the cooking water. It is always a good idea to keep a cup of the pasta cooking water as it can help to loosen up the pasta and sauce if it is too ‘sticky’. Toss the pasta with the meatball sauce and add a spoonful of butter, the Parmesan cheese and half of the ripped up basil leaves. Add a splash of the pasta sauce if you like.

Serve up the pasta in large bowls and top with the rest of the basil leaves and grated Parmesan.

Buon appetito!

For the tomato sauce:

In a large sauce pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until soft and slightly coloured, 8 minutes. Add the thyme, carrots and chili and cook until the carrots are quite soft, about 5 minutes more. Add the tomatoes by crushing them by hand into the pan. You can just grab them out of the can and squish them through your fingers, making sure to get all the juice in the pan as well. Bring this to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Season with salt to taste.

This will keep in the fridge for 1 week or in the freezer for 6 months.

This is the fist of a new series I’m going to appropriately name You’re $#!*ing Me?!

Basically, I will attempt to shatter your perfect world with little gems of BS and other remarkable food facts from the world. (A side note: I disapproved of the word “remarkable” and use it here only to illustrate how not to use it. For some reason, people generally use it to describe something pretty amazing that happened to them. To me, the fact that most people wear socks is remarkable. Buses are remarkable. Simply worthy of remark. That’s it. I’m going to blow your mind with these posts, which is better than remarkable.)

Our first You’re $#!*ing Me?! moment is brought to us by Baby Carrots. You know, the baby carrots that many people think are actually baby carrots and not just shaved down versions of big carrots?

Those little cute carrots you buy in little cute bags for 3x the price of regular carrots actually start out for the most part as big, crooked, deformed carrots.  Those heinous excuses for vegetables are thrown into a big machine designed to chew them up and spit out as perfect little bite-sized morsels of veg. Since your kids won’t eat crooked, deformed carrots and you don’t feel like cutting a carrot into four sticks, “baby” carrots account for the majority of (overpriced) sales.

Sorry to cut this short, but I’m going to grab my iPod mini and head down to the market for some “big” carrots. Now where’d I park my Mini Coop?

You’re $#!*ing Me?!, right??

Pickling never really crossed my mind until recently. I guess I’ve always felt that anything involving canning, jarring or preserving was for grandmas, you know? Great to have on hand for the apocalypse, but otherwise, just too much work. Turns out, it couldn’t be easier. Now that I’ve made these pickled onions many times I can see the slippery slope ahead of me. I suspect that within two months I’ll be eating nothing but vinegar soaked veggies.

In North America, “pickle” almost always refers to a pickled cucumber. The word actually comes from the Dutch for “brine”, and almost any vegetable, or any perishable food for that matter, can be “pickled”. I’ve never actually gone through the trouble of jarring these since I always use them within about two weeks.

It is important to point out here that, much like most of the cooking I do, nothing is exact. Especially with pickling. You can use whatever spices you want and have on hand. Most recipes for pickled red onions use only white vinegar, but I really like the sweet tanginess that red wine vinegar imparts on the onions, so I use a mix. The only reason I mix it is because white vinegar is much cheaper. In the end, you just need enough vinegar to cover to the top of the onions in the pot you’re using. If your onions are larger, use more if you need it!  I like to slice the onions whole – I think the full rings look better for serving – but cut the onions in half first if it’s easier for you.

Add the vinegar, sugar, salt and spices to a pot on medium-high and heat until the sugar & salt are dissolved. Add the onions to the pot and stir them around for about 3 or 4 minutes. You only need to blanch the onions and soften them up. Allow the onions and pickling juice to cool enough to safely add to a jar or airtight container.

Since the first time I made these onions, I’ve had a jar in my fridge at all times. I’ve served them with all kinds of grilled meats from pork chops to jerk chicken to steaks. They’re great with burgers, hot dogs, fish tacos or even just with a spread of meats and cheeses!

Lamb is so cute. How can it taste this good? I’ll tell you how…cumin and paprika and some herbs and some spices fired under a broiler with a crisp refreshing salad to dance with.

As far as I can tell, lamb is an all-or-nothing food. Like cilantro. I don’t know anybody that sort of likes lamb…it’s either love it or hate it. It is a fairly strong tasting meat, but Kefta is a bit milder than, say, a straight up lamb chop given the mix of flavours in the meat. Give these a try if you’re not sure about lamb. Or, if you love it!

Skewers are a good family style meal and great finger food. A couple of these left over Kefta would make a great next-day sandwich with some thick yogurt, cucumber and pickled onions!

Kefta – Put  all ingredients except meat in a food processor and pulse briefly. Add the meat and pulse again until mixed. Alternatively, grate the onion, chop the parsley and cilantro finely, and mix with the other ingredients.

Divide into 18-24 pieces and roll each into a little ball. Mold each ball around a metal skewer, pressing the meat gently yet firmly into a sausage shape. Do NOT use wooden skewers as you’ll be putting these under the broiler and you’ll burn your house down.

Place under a preheated hot broiler and cook for 3-5 minutes on each side until browned. The crunch and flavour you will get from the char on the outside of these Kefta is amazing!

Salad – To make the dressing, put the garlic, salt, and mint in a mortar and pound with a pestle until creamy. Gradually incorporate the lemon juice and oil. If you don’t use a mortar and pestle, you can just throw the ingredients in to one of those little choppers or food processors and give it a buzz.

Put the onions, tomatoes, bell pepper, cucumber, and parsley in a salad bowl and sprinkle with pepper, if using.

Add the dressing and toss well before serving with the lamb Kefta on top and garnished with a sprig of fresh mint.