Spring is on it's way...Welcome Back Vol Au Vent!

I am in great need of a Vol Au Vent FIX!!! The restaurant is by far, one of my favorite places in the world to eat, and the owners have been closed for their annual month off. I know they should be opening again any day now...so I thought I would tell you about the best lunch I ever had... to welcome them back!
Even though it was late September, I had on a sleeveless dress and sandals. The sun was shining and a warm breeze washed over my skin. I was in possession of two of my favorite things. One was the current and largest issue of Vogue Magazine, The September Issue. Two was simply, a sunny day off! I turned into the restaurant and spied my favorite table on the patio, empty and waiting for me. I methodically re-arranged the settings to accommodate my 3 pound magazine, chose the chair with a little shade, ( always facing the beach.) and waited for my glass of crisp white wine to arrive. Just as I opened the cover of my magazine, and leafed through about twenty odd pages of advertising, my server, who also happens to be the owner, arrived. With a cheery 'Bonjour' she laid down the menu and my wine. I admired the unusual necklace she was wearing, and she greedily eyed my magazine. With a wink, she told me to read FAST...so she could borrow it!
It is like this with us. I started eating lunch alone at Vol Au Vent, after I closed my clothing store of 17 years. I had vowed to take six months off, and at least once a week I wandered down the hill with a magazine and had lunch. Over the span of a couple of years, and a couple of hundred solitary lunches...this woman and I have become friends.
On this particular day, after letting me know the catch of the day, she mentioned that the special was Pork Roast. Nothing else, no description...just pork roast. Now I have mentioned my Ukrainian heritage before, and pork of any kind is aces with me...so I said yes...I will have the special. I read a bit more, sipped my wine, and voila, my meal arrived.
She laid it down in front of me, and it was the smell that hit me first. Sort of apple-sweet, and buttery. You know things are on the right track when you can smell the butter! I looked at my plate, and there were four slices of pork roast, with big chunks of soft roasted garlic right inside the meat, shining in the sun all glossy with a buttery jus. On the side was an exquisite pile of the softest, smoothest mashed potatoes, with a pool of butter in the centre. The only other thing on the plate was 4 slices of a cored apple, sort of browned from being baked in the oven, with no peel, but a pretty fluted edge. The beauty of this plate took a minute to sink in. It was so simple, so 'un-fancy' , so perfect and so homemade looking...it made my mouth water.
I took up my knife and fork, and cut a piece of pork, and piled on a scoop of potatoes, and a slice of apple, over and over, and over again, until all that was left on my plate was a thin sheen of beautiful butter. I sat back in my chair, took a sip of wine, and felt utterly, and completely content. If I had been a cat...I would have been PURRING!
It was quite simply, THE PERFECT LUNCH!!
Welcome back Nanna and Michel...I'll see you soon!

spinach and ricotta canneloni

I don't like to have a ton of food in my kitchen. I watch the chefs on Food Network Canada, and read cook books that tell you that the easiest way to cook is to have huge pantries FULL of ingredients. I suppose there are people out there who are so devoted to cooking, that if they have a desire to create a 5 course Indian meal at two in the morning, a stocked pantry is all they need. Not me. I have cooked for the P-Man and myself for so many years now, that having cupboards full of food, just in case I feel like cooking 'X'...seems extremely wasteful . My mom was a big food shopper. It seemed that the bigger our house, the more cupboards and freezers we needed to store the FOOD. Did I mention that it was just my mom and I living in a big house? I remember all the food that we used to throw away, because it had gotten freezer burned, or things were way past their best before date, or little critters got into the half opened packages. When the P-Man and I first got married, we went through a COSTCO stage. The two of us used to waste half a day driving to the brand new COSTCO, that always seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. Once there, we would find a parking spot and get one of those ridiculously HUGE shopping carts, and start the long walk around the enormous store. We would always spend at least 200 dollars, and come home with food that would take us months to eat. It seems so insane, looking back.
Fast forward to today. I have 5 drawers that roll out of my modest pantry. I look at the food in those drawers almost daily. I then try to make a mental note of when I last purchased what...and decide what else I need to purchase to turn it into a meal. I have had a package of dried cannelloni shells for a month or so, and decided that this weekend, I would try to turn them into spinach and ricotta cannelloni. I purchased the other ingredients, and found a recipe that looked reasonable. This morning, I put them together. If there is a prize given for PRETTY looking cannelloni...I'm not going to get it. Some of the shells were a bit broken, so when I boiled them, a few more stuck to the bottom of the pot. My filling looked pretty good, except that I forgot to buy mozzarella cheese, so tried to use a bit more Parmesan. I also don't have a food processor...( Please don't get the P-Man started on that topic!) so I attempted to mince the spinach and parsley and green onions in the blender. I also didn't have a piping bag to pipe the mixture into the shells, so I did the old plastic bag with the one corner cut off, trick. I laid them out on little saucers and froze them. I will look at them later, and attempt to put them into little freezer bags, so I can dazzle the P-Man with my culinary razzamataz when he returns from his trip. I will also have to make a nice tomato sauce to bake them in, and get some mozzarella for the top. Thankfully, I know exactly where to get my last few ingredients...my shift starts tomorrow at 9 am!

A Rough Night

I needed some coffee this morning. Last night I went out to a local pub to meet some old friends. We were there to wish someone GOOD LUCK in their new job in the big city! I had been out for my LARGE Cactus Club lunch a few hours prior to walking down to the pub for 5 pm...so I didn't bother to eat. That was my first mistake. I had a couple of glasses of wine, and someone was nice enough to buy me another...and before you could say: " Cathy's Drunk!"...I was. Mistake number two was helping myself to some of the complimentary appies that were generously provided. I had some raw vegetables with some creamy dip, and a variety of deep fried treats such as little egg rolls,chicken wings, and zucchini sticks. Before I could finish my paper plate full of artery clogging , stomach churning goodness...some dear soul bought me ANOTHER GLASS OF WINE !! Wine was drunk, plate was cleaned, and I seem to recall something about a few more egg rolls being consumed. After all the entertainment and chatting, I glanced outside, and discovered that the sun had set. People were filing out, and the guest of honour was making his final rounds. I said my good-byes, and headed out into the night for the short 10 minute walk home. It must have been the fresh air, but I was feeling pretty good, and was hardly staggering at all! As I approached Slainte by the Pier, I noticed that there were 3 young ladies playing guitar and singing. I had no idea what time it was, but the P-Man was probably just falling asleep on the plane, so, I thought a good plan would be to walk the rest of the way home, grab my debit card, as I had spent all my cash at the pub...and come back and hear the ladies sing! Mistake number three. The ladies were great...all up and coming singer/songwriters, with CD's in the works...I hardly noticed how quickly I managed to drink another couple of glasses of wine. Have you ever seen in the movies, when the drunk person walks out of the door of the establishment, and sort of does a sideways walk right to the edge of the sidewalk, and then veers back to the middle? I did that! I tried to breathe deep, and headed up the big hill to my apartment. At this point, my stomach was starting to make some strange noises. I got in the door, took my coat off, and turned the tv on, convinced that I just needed some water and perhaps a few tums for the noises. Unfortunately, the tums and the water did not like it in my stomach, and started to fight it out with the deep fried eggrolls and the creamy dip! As this blog is supposed to be about EATING FOOD...not the opposite...I will leave the rest to your imagination. Note to the P-MAN...I obviously can not be trusted out alone on a Thursday night. Note to SELF...Drinking, and fried food, and fast walking, and tums, and water is a deadly combination. Today, I managed to have a cup of instant coffee, ( Maxwell House is what my mom and dad drank 40 years ago, and I still do!) and 3/4 of a cup of Honey Nut Cheerios, with a half cup of 1% milk. An hour or so ago, I had a huge plate of leftover spaghetti with homemade tomato/meat sauce, and everything stayed where it belonged...IN my stomach.

Another day...Another lunch...

This is me sitting at The Primeburger in NYC.
I was just finished eating breakfast...but it was almost lunch time!

Cathy's List of Favorite Lunch things:

• A nice wine list with a selection of white wines by the glass for under 10 dollars.
• Some sort of a view. Even a brick wall can be interesting if viewed from a nice looking window.
• A menu full of variety, in ingredients and preparations. Please, someone tell the goat cheese lobby..." WE'VE HAD ENOUGH!!"
• Servers who actually seem to enjoy eating, and who understand something about cooking.
• A restaurant full of animated people discussing interesting things! ( I love to eavesdrop on conversations.)
• Great music! The soundtrack to a memorable Lunch!

I am sad today, as the P-Man is off on another business trip. It is raining, and I got up too early to get him to work, and didn't have time to brush my teeth until recently, and am anticipating being lonely for several days! ( Heavy Sigh, Whine, Whine!) To make myself feel a bit better...I took myself out to lunch. I went to The Cactus Club in South Surrey. www.cactusclubcafe.com. I always to prefer to eat in a non-chain restaurant, but I quite like the Cactus Club. The food is reasonably priced, and best of all, very consistent. They change their menu seasonally, and I can taste the freshness. Today I had the Halibut Soft Tacos, and the yam fries with chipotle mayo. I guess you could say I was sad AND hungry today! The tacos were very good. Two tacos plus a side of guacamole, a few crisp tortilla chips and some fresh salsa. The tacos were filled with blackened halibut with fresh green cabbage slaw and some fresh tomatoes. I shoveled some guacamole into the taco and started eating. The taco was a fresh white flour tortilla, at room temperature. The fish was flaky, and a bit spicy, but I wouldn't call it blackened, as it was described in the menu. The cabbage was crisp and fresh. It was a nice textural contrast, and a fresh combination. It just could have used a bit more spice, or perhaps a bit of sharpness...maybe some lime. The guacamole tasted fine...again really light on heat, but the thing that I didn't like was the brownish color. Someone had forgot to coat the avocado in lime juice, to preserve it's almost iridescent lime green color...and it looked sad and unappetizing. The fresh salsa was nice and zippy with heat...but tomatoes are so far from being at their best this time of year, I really don't know why they bothered. The yam fries were sweet and salty, and the accompanying chipotle mayo was rich and mildly spicy. I have never been to the Southwestern United States, or to Mexico, so I cannot compare it to the authentic dishes they were modelled after. Today, on a rainy Thursday in BC, with a heavy heart...it filled me up.

From the 'Grass is alway's Greener' file!'

I took this photo as we were walking through Soho in NYC. I think it is kind of funny, because in the small town I live in...the cost of parking is ALWAYS a hot topic. ( FYI...our parking rates are 2$ per hour! HA!)

I go back to work tomorrow. Officially the end of my vacation. I still haven't managed to cook very much since I came home...but I did manage to walk uptown and pick up some fresh veggies, and a couple of pounds of ground beef. I decided to make some meatloaf. It has been ages...but that's what I wanted. I had a look for a recipe on one of my favorite websites: http://www.myrecipes.com/ . I like this website for many reasons, but most of all because you can type in the dish, or simply the ingredient you are wanting some inspiration for, and voila...a list pops up. In my case, I chose a new recipe called : ' Dinner Meatloaf Muffins.' It promised meatloaf in half the time, by cooking it in muffin tins. I had all the ingredients except for the saltine crackers. I substituted some other crackers I had in the cupboard, threw it all in a bowl, gave it a mix...formed big meatball shapes, plopped them in the muffin tins, and 25 minutes later I had some seriously delicious mini meat loafs! I roasted some asparagus, and added some leftover mashed potatoes. Despite using regular ground beef...the meatloaf came out incredibly moist and tender. The carrot added some sweetness, and the ketchup topping added some zing. I gave the P-Man a meatloaf lunch today, and he said it was excellent warmed up in the microwave. I will definitely save this recipe for the future. I wonder how it would work for meatballs?