Minty Crispy Treasures

A special edition M&M treat has come out to celebrate the new Indiana Jones movie. When we heard about this, we scoured the city to come up with at least one small bag of the candies.

We went to Sugar Heaven, CVS, City Convenience and came up cold. Some websites said that K-mart was carrying them, but not wanting to trek out to the suburbs, we resorted to ordering a huge box of them over the internet from a store called Candy Land.

They arrived yesterday and they did not disappoint! They are bigger than we thought they would be and have a nice mint chocolate flavour with some small rice crisps embedded within the chocolate. Indy would approve.

Here is what the packaging looks like.





Individual candies have imprints of different archeologic symbols on them. Very satisfying. I'll try to not devour all bags by next week!

Gin Lemon Rickey

The new refreshing drink of the summer is my concoction the Gin Lemon Rickey.

I employed the "Flavour Shaker" that I bought in a very Euro kitchen store in Amsterdam. It is a kitchen tool made by Jamie Oliver, hence the "ou" in "flavour" (but also because I am Canadian). I don't think it was made to make drinks but essentially it looks like a black Barbapapa that can serve as a mortar and pestle. For more information, see:

http://www.flavourshaker.co.uk/





Here I mashed up some mint with ice cubes in the implement, then added gin, lemon bubbly water and enjoyed on a hot summer day.

Some famous characters who enjoy the traditional lime rickey:
-Mr. Burns
-Tony Soprano
-people in "The Great Gatsby"
-Karen from "Will and Grace"

Shmish with Rice and Vegetables

I discovered this vegetarian "fish" when eating at Buddha's Delight across the street from our apartment.

Then I was even happier when I found it in the vegetarian "meats" section of my local Asian grocer! So here is Shmish prepared in a clay pot (which is actually a ceramic pot, since I do not own a clay pot)





The best part about Shmish is that it is molded to look like fish complete with scales. I think the mild "fishy" flavor comes from the seaweed that it is wrapped around. It comes frozen, but thaws really quickly.




I cut it up and mashed it around with some minced ginger, this interesting cilantro paste thing that is a Goya product, soy sauce, Sriracha hot sauce, lemon juice, shallots and minced garlic. Then I chopped up some red bell pepper and broccoli and just zapped in the micro-onde for about 5 minutes, then stirred it up and zapped again for another 3.






It was served with white rice and some fresh herbs (cilantro, green onions and basil). Yum!

Vietnamese Five-Spice Cornish Hens

This will be the first post in my "Made it, then Ate it" series.

I bought two frozen cornish hens at the Asian Grocery Store, Super 88 and then figured I should do something tasty with them. So here we go. I'm not much of a measuring cook, so the reproducibility may be low, but I think that the flavors are something not easily messed up.

Here is the marinade:
cup of white wine (I used a 5 dollar bottle of Chardonnay, you are supposed to use dry... is that dry?)
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1/2 cup of Worcestershire sauce
2 thinly sliced shallots (I ordered 5 shallots from peapod and instead got 5 packets! of organic shallots... i have been cooking with shallots a lot lately)
a thumb length of grated ginger



Whilst mixing up the marinade, cleaver your hens into four pieces, salt each side and place them in a strainer to absorb the saltiness.

Rinse off hens and put them in your big bowl with the marinade and put in the fridge for at least 2 hours, but best overnight. I did it for about 8 hours.






When done marinating, mix up the following in a big stock pot:
8 cups water
1/2 cup sugar
3 squirts Hoisin sauce
1 tbsp Chinese Five Spice Powder
some fresh ground pepper

Boil the above, then transfer hens from marinade bowl into stock pot. Boil again, then remove from heat and let sit for 20 minutes with cover on to poach your birds.

Preheat oven to 350-375 degrees. Remove bird pieces from the stock pots and dry on paper towels. Transfer to foil lined baking pan. Then pour over both sides of bird bits the following mixture:

juice of 1 lemon
honey, 2 squirts
soy sauce, 2 squirts

Put pan in oven and bake with skin side up for ~ 30 minutes or until golden and crispy looking.




Eat and enjoy!

Brain eaters attack Boston!

They have ris'n near South Station and threaten to suck out our brains. Please send help. The apocalypse is nigh.

Photos where I look hungry

Looking for some thematic photos to post, I realized that I often make the same face when posing with food.

First, is me eating some right off the tree pears in at winery in the Niagara region.

Second, we see me at an IMAX 3-D movie with a big bag of salty salty popcorn.

And finally, attack of the injected cupcake at a now defunct novelty cupcake shoppe in the North End of Boston.

What rhymes with "hungry"?

I can't seem to find many words that truly rhyme with this word. There are a lot of cousin rhymes but so far, a quick google search reveals "angry" and "sundry". The online rhyming dictionary I found says that no perfect rhymes can be found. Can anyone think of others?!!

Also interesting is that a bunch of hits for the Busta Rhymes song, "Survival Hungry" come up. I now need to see what said song sounds like.

I am often very hungry. People think that I either have an intestinal parasite or that I am a binge/purge type. None of the above, thank you! I just like to eat, cook and think about food. But I am often hungry for other things... many of which I plan to share.

Thanks for reading and now it's time for a snack.
-jt