Monthly Archives: September 2011

Peachy-sweet pork chops

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On the menu tonight were two beautiful pork chops from our foodshare. To complement them, we decided on a farm-fresh peach and capsicum pepper sauce. What’s great about this meal is that both the chops and the sauce are incredibly simple, quick, and easy to make, making this a perfect dish after a busy day at work that’s delicious, but also very healthy.

Ingredients:

  • 2 to 4 pork chops
  • 2 fresh peaches, chopped
  • 1 small red sweet capsicum pepper (the long variety, rather than the bell variety), chopped
  • 1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric powder, or to taste
  • 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
  • 1 teaspoon black ground pepper, or to taste
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
  • 1/2 tablespoon of grapeseed or olive oil

Substitute Ingredients:

Best home-cooked Caribbean in Southwestern Ontario

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This weekend, my man and I had the surprising opportunity to have one of the best, if not the best, Caribbean meal we’ve ever had. We were on our way out of the city for the weekend and decided to stop over in Guelph, Ontario for lunch. We had mad cravings for Caribbean doubles, and so, I decided to run a quick online search for a good Caribbean restaurant in the area.

Caribbean Cuisine

The first option that came up was “Guelph’s Caribbean Cuisine”, a small local restaurant in the heart of Guelph that had great ratings on TripAdvisor. The fabulous voice on the other end of my follow-up call confirmed that although they normally weren’t open on weekends, the jazz festival going on in the city meant that they would be open that afternoon. What luck!

We and our rumbling bellies arrived less than an hour later to a hearty welcome by the owners. After scouring the menu board, we both decided on a roti each, and for me (after a frantic search for my double until my fiancé kindly pointed it out: “double ——– $1.95″), I ordered one of those too.

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A childhood favorite: Alphabet soup

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This weekend, while on a historical tour around Mennonite country in southern Ontario with our family, I came across dried alphabet noodles at a Mennonite General Store. Up to this point, I have never seen dried pasta in the shape of alphabets before. They lived only in the much-loved cans of Campbell’s alphabet or Heinz’s Alphagetti soups – both of which were considered an occasional treat in our household. Especially the Alphagetti, because of its perceived lower nutritional value.

In any case, I quickly scooped up a bag. For less than $3 for a reasonable-sized bag of homemade nostalgia, I didn’t need to think twice.

First thing I made when we returned to Toronto: my own homemade alphabet (and numbers, since it turned out the bag also contained numbers) vegetable soup. In a word, delicious.

As a tip, if you like adding rice or pasta to your soup, make the soup first and then cook the rice or pasta separately when the soup is ready for serving. Spoon in the pasta or rice into your serving bowls first, and pour in the soup over top. This keeps the pasta or rice from overcooking and falling apart.

Most of you will have a fabulous vegetable soup recipe already. However, in case you’re interested, I’ve included my uber-simple vegetable soup recipe below. You can really use any vegetables you happen to have in your fridge. Corn is fantastic to include for the sweetness it adds to any soup base.

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Tomatillo salsa

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Image credits: Vivian Chan

We received some beautiful, fresh tomatillos in our foodshare this last week, and decided to whip up a quick salsa out of them.

Tomatillos are a mainstay in Mexican and Latin American cooking. Chances are, if you’ve ever had a green salsa or sauce at a Mexican restaurant, then you’ve had tomatillos. They are part of the nightshade family (same family as tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and gooseberries), and are usually bright green in colour, although there are tomatillos that are a green-purple. They have a firm texture, tart flavour, and grow with a paper-like covering over the fruit. Needless to say, we were really excited to get them and to make our own version of the tart salsa. The great part is that this salsa is really simple, quick, and easy – perfect to whip up for an appetizer or snack.

Ingredients: (makes about 2 cups of salsa)

  • 5 tomatillos, chopped
  • 1 chili pepper, finely chopped
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons of either parsley or cilantro, finely chopped
  • 1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt, or to taste
  • 1 teaspoon of pepper, or to taste
  • Chips!

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