Going Domestic

diversions of the food kind

In the last month, Chris and I have been making an effort to use of the food stored in our chest freezer so that as little as possible goes to waste when we move across the country next week. We've done a fair job of it - I think the only major things left are a package of spinach nuggets and a bag of frozen peeled shrimp. Anyone know of a recipe that uses both of those? LOL!  I also had about six litres of chicken stock in there that I never got around to using. Now I have a surplus of plastic storage containers ...

Speaking of recipes, I tried out this one for lemon potatoes recently, and it was my most successful effort ever:

And I've been obsessing over the brownie waffles over at the Food Chronicles site, even more so now that there's pictures!

How the Mighty Fall

Okay, I am beginning to think that Ikea isn't my favourite store anymore. When we bought our Markor sideboard this past summer, I noticed that one of the drawer fronts was crooked, but decided that it was more sensible to just replace the crooked piece than unassemble the entire sideboard. I have emailed Ikea at least two times about how to go about doing this, but I never heard back. I asked in person at our local Ikea today, and all the employee could say is that I have to wait for someone to return a Markor sideboard first. Um ... seriously? There's nothing else that can be done?

Valentine Sweets

I have been incredibly tempted by all of the Valentine's Day offerings at Williams-Sonoma.  These cute little pink ramekins are making me stray from my devotion to Emile Henry.  There is a silicon pan for making little heart-shaped muffins or mousses. It's pink, too! My sister picked up a pan for makig heart-shaped mini cheesecakes, which I can't seem to find on their website. The only thing I've indulged in is a set of pink and green striped tea towels, as we'll need some to take to St. John's with us ...

Phyllo for Dummies

This weekend my sister was in Calgary visiting, and we'd planned to make spanokopita. I'd never used phyllo before, but I'd noticed the frozen packs of it at the Co-op just a few days earlier, so it was an exciting opportunity. I bought a package of phyllo dough, popped it into the freezer section of our fridge, and forgot about it until we wanted to make the spanokopita. Bad move. I guess I was supposed to have thawed it in the fridge overnight before use!

In the end we had to post-pone our spanokopita plans until the dough had defrosted. We made a batch of brownies in the meantime.

What's Customer Service in Swedish?

I think that I am getting slightly less infatuated with Ikea. I emailed their customer service address over a week ago, asking how I would go about obtaining a replacement part for one of the drawers on our Markor sideboard - the holes in it were drilled off-center, so the drawer looks crooked.  No reply yet. I'm disappointed. I wonder if I could inquire at the actual store - it's only ten minutes away from my house ...

Related topic: my friend Chris sent me this link to the blog of a gentlemen who is an even bigger Ikea fan than I am.  I've only been to four Ikea locations

• Edmonton (two old locations, and the current one)
• Shaumburg, Illinois (the coolest escalator for shopping carts!)
• Richmond, BC
• Calgary (old and new locations)

Sadly, there is no Ikea in St. John's ...

Plastic ... it's Fantastic

I'm kind of sad to report that the caramel shortbread squares I made for Christmas munching were more popular than my mom's no-bake chocolate graham wafer squares were. I can't believe it! Still, I'm really happy that the caramel shortbread got good reviews as it was my first time making it. I ended up getting annoyed at Nigella's recipe because off all the measurements in grams, and used the shortbread base recipe from the One Smart Cookie lemon bars instead. I went back to Nigella to make the caramel. Heating the concoction in the microwave worked for awhile, until it started to boil over in the dish that was inadvertantly too shallow. I transfered the caramel-in-progress to a saucepan and finished it on the stove instead.

The caramel shortbread was my first time lining a baking pan with parchment before baking. My sister warned me that I'd need to grease the parchment, so I sprayed the pan with non-stick cooking spray, stuck the parchment down, and then sprayed again. The spray helped the parchment stick to the pan, actually, so that was fabulous.

What would have been even better, though, would have been a silicon 8x8 baking pan. How perfect would one of those be for sticky squares? I think I shall be adding one of those next to my bakeware collection ...

Truly a Welfare State

My friend Ada sent me this link to article about people abusing Ikea stores: The Swedish Feeding Trough. I wonder if this stuff goes on at the Calgary store?

Found a new blog to follow as well - not related to Ikea, though: Diary of a Mad Fabri-holic.  Kind of makes me think about taking both of my sewing machines and my fabric stash with us to our temporary new home ...

A Gastronomical Tour

Two Fridays ago, the local CBC restaurant critic, John Gilchrist, announced his picks for the top ten best new eateries in the Calgary area. We've been to a few, including his fave, the Route 40 Soup Company (love their soups and root veggie fries, but wasn't wowed by their sandwiches).  Chris, Madeline, and I are taking a hiatus from Calgary at the end of the month, and I started thinking of my favourite places to dine in this crazy city.

In no particular order:

• Da Paolo - our sentimental favourite for birthdays and anniversaries, in those childless days. Super tasty fine Italian food, lovely setting, though it's located by an auto repair shop on the less trendy part of 17th Ave SW. I've always forgotten that fact when inside. One of us would usually order the Pasta alla Paolo - handmade pasta stuffed with veal, fine herbs, and ricotta, I think.

• Rouge - we've eaten at Rouge three times, although the first two times the restaurant was still called The Cross House. The chef is the same. French food, and it's always been excellent. As a bonus, the place is haunted ...

• Glory of India - love their butter chicken and biryani, and even their okra is delicious. They have a daily lunch buffet which really makes me regret never having worked downtown.

• Big T's BBQ - I love pulled pork sandwiches, and this is the place to get them. I've branched out menu-wise and like their catfish po'boy nearly as much. They have three locations now, I think. Madeline likes eating there because I share my side order of mac n' cheese with her.

• Towa Sushi - though Wa's is frequently held to be the best sushi in Calgary, I like Towa Sushi because the cuts are big and fresh. Their maki rolls are gigantic. I have to mention that Hana Sushi down the road from Towa makes a wonderful maki roll, too - done with rice paper instead of nori.

• Jugo Juice - while not technically a restaurant, I'll miss this place because their Mango Magics, Copa Bananas, and Summer Strawberries always have reminded me of summer, even on a bleak February day.

• Buchanan's - it's a steakhouse, but I've only ever tried their cheeseburger. It's a serious patty of minced sirloin ...

Oddly enough, I don't have a favourite Thai restaurant! I imagine that when Chris reads this post, he'll remind me of a number of places we've enjoyed that I forgot to mention!