Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Images from my garden

I do not have the room for a complex garden at my home due to all the room taken up by the pool, but I work with what I have got. 

I have been experimenting over the past 2 summers as to what works well in the soil I have.  So far I have determined that peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers seem to work the best.  My cucumber plants exploded this year and are overrunning the garden and choking out the peppers unfortunately.  I need to figure out something better for next year.  Possible using the chicken wire fences I built for my mom a couple years back.


From Garden 2010

Above is the cucumber plants from about a month ago.  They are much larger now.  I need to take an updated snap.


From Garden 2010

One of the cucumbers harvested last week.  They are growing oddly, but taste excellent.


From Garden 2010


From Garden 2010

Some of the cherry tomatoes from the upside down planter.

And below are some of the visitors to my garden.  The birds are long gone now.  But I seem to have a lot of toads lately.


From Garden 2010


From Garden 2010


From Garden 2010

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Garden Fresh Quick Pickles

My garden is finally starting to produce so I made up some brine for quick pickles to have with dinner. Quite simple and very tasty. You can substitute other vegetables as well. As it is not a true pickling, they do not last a long time, but I never had a problem with expiry as they go so quickly.  The recipe below is fairly basic, but using my own gardens produce fresh makes it even better. You can really taste the difference.





Brine

1.5 cups of White Vinegar
1/3 cup of sugar
1.5 tbsp of sea salt
1.5 cups cold water
1/2 tablespoon of fresh ground black pepper
3 tablespoons of cider vinegar


Mix all the base ingredients with the exception of the cider vinegar into a seal-able glass container. I usually mix with my mini hand mixer as it does a quick job of cleanly.

Vegetables


1-2 chilies
1 large English cucumber
1 medium onion (try the purple ones for a better end flavour)*


The chilies are to be chopped fine. Keep the seeds for a bit of heat.

The onion is to be peeled then sliced into rings. The rings are separated.

The cucumber is to be sliced to about 0.5 cm thick. I usually do it on an angle.

Mix and steep all the vegetables in the brine. Pour the cider vinegar that was set aside over top the brine and veggie mixture. Seal the container and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours. They should come out nice and crisp.

http://twitpic.com/2b3dpu

*I did not have a purple onion on hand and was not dragging the kids to the store to get one today. So I used a yellow onion instead. Still tasty.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Bourdain "Medium Raw" Contest

Anthony Bourdain is running a contest for his new book "Medium Raw".  I had sat down and wrote an essay based on his concept of "Cooking Well".  Unfortunately, I did not read the rules prior to writing and found out just as I was about to enter that people outside the US are unable to.  So I thought I would start sharing here.  I would have loved to enter as he really inspired me in my ramblings.  I love watching his show with my son (who seems to want to become a chef himself now).

I hope whoever reads this can appreciate my view on the concept.  Post back and let me know how you feel.
~Tom

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Cooking Well is more than just the application of cooking practices.  It is the experimentation and addition of a Cooks own ideas and techniques that push the boundaries of what is expected. 

Staying with the tried and true is something that will eventually bore the people you are trying to serve an excellent meal to. Things need to be changed up and risks need to be taken occasionally to wake up the palette of your gastronomic audience.

And it is not just the serving of the food you have prepared, but I also find that people love to hear how I prepared the meal, if I used something different or unique, or if I used a special method of my own.

It is about injecting your passion and love of the art of food into what you create.  It is about presenting your appetizer or entrĂ©e or dessert or drink in the most eye catching manner possible, as the first impression of your meal is always the visual aspect.  Your cooking might taste excellent, but if it looks like a bowl of gruel, that may put off some of the people you are trying to serve.

Food should never be rushed.  Time is one of the elements that are missing from a lot of today’s meals. 

This starts right from the beginning of planning the meal...looking for the best ingredients, the freshest produce, the tastiest meats and the plan to bring it all together. 

I get a lot of my vegetation ingredients from farmers markets or my own garden or even the small hydroponics setup I have in my kitchen, where I grow my most common used herbs.  The fresher my base ingredients are the better my end product is.

I also hunt for some of my food.  Hunting is one of the most intimate practices that you can participate in and really makes you appreciate where your meal is coming from.  I find it has made me respect how I apply my cooking practices and to use what I have obtained to its best potential.

Time is something that is also missing in the end process.  Take the time to savour and enjoy what you are consuming.  Today's society has missed that for too many years.  Most people rush though what they are eating, stand up, belch and rush off to the next thing.  They are missing part of life, part of the hard work that one person or many performed to bring together a meal worth appreciating.  That what they are eating will become a part of them.  It is not just fuel, but your body uses what you eat also as building blocks to grow, rebuild and repair.

The aspects of Cooking Well are not just in the Cook, but also in the components, the time, the audience and the stories about your meal.  It is the appreciation of all these elements that in the end will show how well you cook.

~The Honest Ramblings of an Incoherent Amateur Chef