Sustainable Salmon

We've had some fantastic salmon within the past few days, because the kind people at Skipper Otto's Community Supported Fishery gave me a little gift bag of a few types of salmon to try.

Skipper Otto's CSF is based on the Community Supported Agriculture model, which helps to connect consumers to local, organic, fairly-traded, and sustainable food.  All of Skipper Otto's seafood is caught and processed ethically in British Columbia (the pictures depict three generations of family fishermen).






We got to try chum sticks of "hot smoked" salmon, and candied, peppered smoked salmon made from pink salmon.

The aroma when we opened the packages of the smoked salmon was fantastic!  Both were excellent, and of really high quality, but the peppered salmon really caught our attention.  It was so flavourful, and the coarse-ground pepper gave it a nice touch of spice.  The pieces were bite-sized already, which was convenient.  The smokiness in both the sticks and the peppered bites was perfect.

We also tried a sockeye salmon fillet.  It was firm, and dense, and had beautiful colour.  It was one of the best pieces of fish I've ever had.

Christopher and his handsome father went salmon fishing in BC a few years back, and I've heard how good the salmon was fresh out of the water ... since we won't be going salmon fishing any time soon, I think this is the closest we're going to get to snagging our own from the water.  It tasted fresh and flavourful, and we can feel good knowing that it was caught in an ethical, sustainable way.

If you want to join the Skipper Otto CSF, you can get $20 off of a membership by using the coupon code EverydayFoodie by May 8th, 2015.  You can sign up or learn more about Skipper Otto's seafood and where to buy it on their website.

If you live in Regina, you can buy Skipper Otto seafood at Body Fuel Organics.

Where do you buy seafood?  Have you had salmon recently?  

Have you ever been fishing?

Weekend at Home

We are out of town a lot.  The past three weekends in a row, we've been away.  When we are in town, we don't like to be too busy.  In fact, our favourite weekends are usually the ones when we don't have to leave the house at all; this weekend was one of those weekends. 

On Friday evening we cooked up some Asian noodles, and then fell asleep on the couch watching comedy (obviously wasn't that funny).

Yesterday morning we made buttermilk pancakes and bacon for breakfast.  In the later afternoon, friends Tricia and Lee, who are getting married next week, came over for a visit.  We're looking forward to their wedding in 6 days!

Later in the evening we had take-out from Western Pizza because we didn't feel like cooking supper.

We didn't even come close to finishing the yummy lasagna, poutine, salad and garlic toast, so we'll have a good lunch or dinner today.

This morning we were up bright and early.  We made a twist on eggs benedict, with buttermilk waffles as the base.  We put bacon into the batter, and then topped the waffles with poached eggs and hollandaise. 

After breakfast we had fun researching future vacations, and chillin' in the basement while Christopher played bass and drums; it's only 1:00 ... who knows what the rest of the day will bring!

What did you do this weekend?  

Do you have any weddings coming up?

BBQ Recipes

We're so lucky to have an early spring!  Now that it's nice out, Christopher and I have been trying to think of new things to BBQ this spring and summer.  We found so many inspiring and tasting looking ideas on the BBQ recipes page of RicardoCuisine.com. 

First we BBQd the chicken drumsticks with Indian spices.

They were fabulous!  We marinated them in the coconut milk and spices overnight, and then they took no time at all on the BBQ.  We served them with potatoes and salad.

Because the chicken was so good, we were inspired to try another recipe from the BBQ recipes page.  We chose the grilled endives with melon and prosciutto for a sweet and savory appetizer.

They were easy to put together, and after brushing them with olive oil, we tossed them on the grill for a few minutes per side.

These are an extremely satisfying appetizer.  They are salty, and just a tiny bit sweet, with a bit of crunch.  We'll definitely make these again when we have dinner guests.

Ricardo Cuisine has a lot of recipes on the website.  We're looking forward to trying a lot more of the BBQ ideas this summer.  Most days after work we head straight outside and visit in the backyard, and we often end up cooking dinner out there too.  On weekends, we'll sit outside all day, while our dinner cooks very slowly and makes all the neighbors jealous ;-) 

You can find both of the recipes I made and a lot more at BBQ recipes.

What is your favourite thing to throw on the BBQ?

* Full disclosure - All opinions are my own.  The recipes were chosen by me and ingredients purchased by me.  In exchange for trying a recipe, I will be receiving a subscription to Ricardo Magazine.

Grapefruities

I've done a lot of baking this week.  In addition to four loaves of bread (for our breakfasts), I also baked some double chocolate cookies.

You can find the recipe here. 

I also baked grapefruities, which are similar in style to brownies, but are grapefruit flavour instead of chocolate.

Grapefruities

1 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

zest of one grapefruit

3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled

2 eggs

3 T grapefruit juice (squeezed from the zested grapefruit)

1 tsp vanilla

Glaze

1 cup icing sugar

2-3 T grapefruit juice

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Spray an 8 inch square pan with cooking spray.  Mix the sugar, flour, salt, b. powder, and zest.  Add the butter, grapefruit juice, eggs and vanilla.  Pour into baking pan & bake 20 minutes.  Cool.  Mix up the glaze ingredients (adding the grapefruit juice a little at a time until the icing is pourable).  Pour the icing over the grapefruities, and put them in the fridge for the icing to set.  Cut into squares to serve.

Have you done any baking recently?

Busy Weekend

On Friday after work we left town for Saskatoon.  Once we got there we ate dinner at Seoul, a delicious Korean restaurant.

After dinner we met up with some pals and spent the rest of the evening with them, catching up, and having a lot of laughs.

Saturday was spent visiting with my mom, until the evening when we met up with other pals and did some more catching up.  We picked up Thai food for a late dinner in our hotel room.

On Sunday we picked up groceries for my mom, and then had another really nice visit with her.  We shared a sub for a late lunch before heading home.  Once home, we went back out to grab our groceries for the week.

Later in the evening we had some pizza for dinner.

We were both wiped by Sunday evening.  It was a busy, but really fun weekend!

How was your weekend?  What did you do?

Vacation Detox

Since we've been home from vacation, we've been loading up on veggies.  It always seems we don't get enough of them when we're away.  We had a sandwich loaded with veggies:

Roasted vegetable lettuce wraps:

 Spaghetti squash (roasted, and then baked with sauce and cheese):

And last night we had a veggie curry.

We also BBQd this week for the first time in 2015!

It was so nice to sit outside and visit, which we do every day after work in the summer.  We even saw a little friend ...

We enjoyed our BBQd salmon and potatoes with a big salad.

Have you cooked outside yet this year?

Le Bernadin - 3 Michelin Stars

While in New York we made sure to dine at a restaurant that was awarded three Michelin Stars (the highest number available).  After seeing The Hundred-Foot Journey, in which the owner of a restaurant in the movie is striving to gain her second Michelin Star, we really wanted to dine in a restaurant with the highest accolade we could find.  Le Bernadin was one of very few restaurants in New York to hold three Michelin Stars not only in 2014, but again in 2015.

It has also held four stars from the New York Times for the longest period of time of any restaurant, and was rated 15th best restaurant in the world in Restaurant magazine.

The service was impeccable.  To start, the servers brought us a salmon spread, and a choice of numerous house made breads.

We had two appetizers, the salmon tartare, and the octopus.




Both were incredible.

Christopher had the snapper as his main course, and I had lobster.




The main dishes were perfectly cooked, however they needed a vegetable or something with them, and there was no option to order sides.

We had hazelnut praline and black walnut as our desserts.




The servers also brought us a taste of another dessert.



We're looking forward to our next Michelin dining experience.  This one was really fun!

Is there a restaurant on your bucket list?  What is it?

(Some we hope to visit include Momofuko Ko in NYC, and Sukiyabishi Jiro in Tokyo ... and after we do more research, we'll have more on this list)

Until Next Time ... NYC

Soo is a family friend, so much so, that she's family.  A Korean family member (sounds about right for us)!  She met Christopher's sister while they were both working in Korea, but Soo grew up in, and lives in NY.  While there, we had to meet up with her for dinner. 

She took us to Bonchon, a Korean fried chicken franchise (think KFC meets Korea).  The chicken was amazing, and the fries were some of the best we've ever had.

I was happy to have finally met Soo, and we had a really nice visit.  She insisted on paying for dinner (thanks Soo)!  After dinner she showed us a cool, tucked away hotel lounge, called Lantern's Keep.  We had a couple more hours of laughing and visiting.

Other eats in NY included soup from The Original Soup Man (you know, from Seinfeld). 

We also had another night at a comedy club, and more pizza.  We went to The Comedy Cellar twice on this trip, and both times we laughed non-stop.  I highly recommend it.

Our last full day in NY (Friday) was spent lounging around a bit.  We were out late Thursday evening, so we ordered in Thai lunch to our room on Friday.  Later in the afternoon we went to the MOMA, and saw some amazing original paintings including some by Picasso, Dali, Monet, and Van Gogh.  We did a bit of shopping, and went to an Irish pub as well.

For dinner we went to Kunjip, a fantastic, 24 hour Korean restaurant in Korea Town.  The service at this restaurant was probably the most efficient we've ever seen. 

We left very full, and very happy.  Also, Christopher was calling our server "mom" by the time we were leaving (this seems to happen a lot).  He now has a Thai mom, a Korean mom, and his own amazing mom and mother-in-law, haha!

On Saturday morning we had a late breakfast in a place across the street from our hotel, and then headed to the airport.

A yummy beet drink (no, that's not an oxymoron).

We were upgraded to first class on both of our flights home, and it was fantastic.

The flight attendant on our first flight made sure we had beverages (in addition to the bottled water that was waiting for us) before the rest of the passengers were even on board.  We were also given pillows, and blankets, etc. etc..

Our trip to New York was so wonderful, and our list of things to do on our next visit is already too long.  We even found a few hotels we want to stay in on future trips; we loved our hotel, but next time we might step it up a bit on the luxuriousness.  It's vacation after all, and we like to go all out!

Do you have any upcoming vacations or road trips?