After a morning of prep work at the East York Curling Club, we dashed to the Royal Canadian Curling Club to open for the very first time. We all arrived at 12 noon and opened at 6. The work was staggering, every system new and all new staff and we did great. Food was great, service was great, all smiles.
As I collapsed into bed at 1:30 a.m. I did start to wonder why I do this for a living. There must be an easier way.
Archive for October, 2007
Our turkey dinner was great. I can never get enough of the aroma of a roasting turkey, except for say the tantalizing smell of baking pies.
I deboned our turkey, stuffed it, sewed it back up and then roasted it. My partner thinks that it is very untraditional and time consuming but I stand by my system. Every minute spent boning and stuffing is reaped tenfold when I carve the turkey into neat slices, each one with its allotment of stuffing.
Getting ready for Canadian thanksgiving and the cottage.
But first I had to receive the frozen & dry goods for our new restaurant at the royal canadian curling club.
“Take the pressure off of weeknight cooking” was the title of the cooking class that cheryl and I taught today at montcrest school. The science lab was turned into a bistro as pressure cookers hissed and whistled away.
We made East West Pot Roast, Rogan Josh and Shrimp, Asparagus and Lemon Rissotto. This class gave me the opportunity to answer questions about feeding children. I opined that children’s behaviour towards food is modeled after their parents. I truly feel that if mom and dad don’t take the time to cook at home at least once or twice a week that they are missing out on the opportunity to nourish the soul.
We ate well and froze the leftovers.
Shrimp, Lemon & Basil Rissotto – Serves 4
Ingredients
4 tablespoons Oil, Olive
2 tablespoons Butter
1 cloves Garlic — minced
1 Lemons — zested
1 Onions — finely chopped
1/2 cup Basil — chiffonade
2 cups Arborio rice
4 cups Stock, Chicken
1/2 cup Wine, Table, White
24 ounces Shrimp
1 cup Cheese, Parmesan — grated
1 handful Asparagus — chopped into 1″ pieces
Instructions
In a pressure cooker, heat oil and butter over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until softened but not brown. Stir in rice and saute for 1 minute. Pour in stock and wine and asparagus.
Lock the lid in place and bring cooker to full pressure over high heat. Reduce to medium, just to maintain even pressure, and cook for 7 minutes.
Remove from heat and release pressure quickly.
Stir in the shrimp, asparagus, basil and parmesan cheese and put back onto heat for a couple of minutes or until shrimp and asparagus are cooked.
After a hectic cooking day for a special client (a brand new mom), we went shopping here for equipment for our newly acquired restaurant kitchen. We now run restaurants in 2 curling clubs. The restaurant kitchen of our newest acquisition is undergoing repair and it will be a race to open Tuesday.
Today was a vegetarian cook day and we experimented with Seitan. We made our traditional Sweet and Sour Pork Recipe and substituted seitan for the pork. I was very impressed. We tried to make seitan a couple of weeks back and we weren’t happy with the texture so we opted to purchase it at the big carrot. If someone was had a great deal of success making seitan let me know.