Another great day in the kitchen. We were very very productive.
Our morning was all about chopping, Tomato Salsa, Tomatillo Salsa, Guacamole and then all of the fixings for A Burrito Bar.
Here’s how to remove the pit from an avocado
Working with Avocadoes
A very Tasty Guacamole
Now to make Tomatillo Salsa (Salsa Verde)
Then Tomato Salsa
Then more onion chopping
While on our field trip we made an unscheduled stop at Hooked the fist store on Queen Street East where we learned about local Lake Huron fish. Thanks for the lesson about the perils of gill net fishing for our natural environments.
Next stop was Meating on Queen, where George and his son Jeffrey shared their tips and techniques with us about their famous sausages.
This is the mixture for George’s Moroccan Chicken Sausage, his wife’s favourite.
He makes all of his sausage mixtures by hand
Our farmer’s market field trip got sidetracked by an intense desire to bake. We returned to the kitchen and made oatmeal cookies and strawberry tarts with hand made pastry and custard.
Our pastry experts hard at work
Phew! What a fun day. We started off making pastry for our quiches. Learned about rubbing fat into flour, folding the dough, rolling the dough and making pretty edges. Two fillings were on the menu Quiche Lorraine had bacon lardons, cheese & onions and we also made Spinach and Feta.
Everyone rolled out their own dough for their quiche and then we assembled on mass.
Here they are before they went into the oven.
and out of the oven
We practiced knife skills getting ingredients ready for the salad.
Sierra and Bianca were very good at getting the cream whipped and ready for the new crop of Ontario strawberries.
I needed a cool feeling fish dish, bright with colour but full of flavour. I found an old recipe that I hadn’t made in years. I bought my Shiitake mushrooms at T&T and made up a mushroom mousse and then stuffed little turbans of fresh sole. I bake them off in some white wine and then reduced the wine to make a beurre blanc sauce and finished it with some cilantro. I’ll serve it with a wild rice pilaf and some green beans. I’m taking dinner over to a friend’s house tonight. Light and yummy, can’t wait!
This Easter I made cute little buns with a whole egg baked into the centre. Our Friday night tradition has me rather a Challah Expert, so I decided to use my regular Challah dough. I made a full recipe and divided the dough into 12 portions. I stretched each portion into a rope which I knotted around a hard boiled egg which had been coloured.
I also brought some pierogie. I use a 3 egg pasta dough enriched with some sour cream. My filling is made from ground pork mixed with sauteed onions and bacon. What’s not to love. I have started to use the pasta machine to roll out my dough (don’t tell my mother in law). It’s quick and way less work on my shoulders. We stamp out the circles and everyone takes turns placing a small tsp of filling in the centre and then folding them over to seal. I boil the pierogie until they float and then add some caramelized onion and bacon to keep them from sticking together.
Here is a spring rissotto that we made last week. Aspragus, fresh peas and Parmesan 
For dessert we wanted to move beyond traditional and decided to de-construction a lemon meringue pie. Here we have hazelnut meringue fingers, fresh lemon curd with handmade crystallized zest, cookie and Limoncello.
I love baking bread and I think that I have found the world’s easiest Challah recipe. It turns out every single time. Tonight there is an Oneg Shabbat at Oraynu and I made 5 little challot for each one of the tables.
I’m intoxicated by the smell of baking bread. I’m also making mashed potatoes with griebens as my contribution to the pot luck. I have been perfecting my schmalz making. It’s a lost art. Rendered chicken fat infused with the flavour of caramelized onion….it’s spectacular when added to mashed potatoes. The Yiddishe Mama is convinced that this is now the tastiest mashed spuds ever.
My knitting friends will be familiar with the term. It’s an acronym for Stash Amassed Beyond Life Expectancy and it now applies to my cookbook collection.
This past week I have been cooking up Jewish delicacies in celebration of my Jewish heritage and served at my father’s birthday. I am now looking to acquire a regular repertoire of recipes, which of course requires research (thanks neighbours) and cookbooks.
My cookbook collection gets regular culling but is now completely beyond my life expectancy. I can only hope that Nicholas starts reading them and sharing the research load with me.
My waist line has increased by 2 inches with all of the schmaltz that I have been using and no one leaves my house without groaning. I am becoming a good Yiddshe Mama.
I baked a beautiful 6 strand challah and I’m hooked. I feel a Friday morning baking ritual coming on.
I’m taking reservations now for Friday night dinner….just to make sure that the leftovers don’t last for a week! Maybe just one appetizer this week instead of chopped liver and knishes!
My son and his friend were begging me to make Fettucine Alfredo, so I did what any harried mom would do and told them to make it themselves!
They were very eager 
There was lots of grating of Parmesan:
Colin thought that the Microplane Zester did the best job.
So they reduced some cream, added some butter, stirred in some nutmeg, Parmesan and pepper and voila! Fettucine Alfredo, tastes best when you made it yourself!
I am so grateful that my son is finally tall enough to reach the stove!
