Hormone and antibiotic free meats are healthier in my opinion. This is because many of these substances are fat-soluble and so are stored within the fat cells of the animal.

The problem is that these meats are much more expensive — often 2-4 times as costly — as regular meat. Boneless skinless chicken breasts, for example, are about $2.50 for mystery meat brand, and up to $7.99 for organic.

I hate the idea of paying so much for the meat, and I’m looking for ways to cut down on the cost. One option is to buy a whole chicken. Organic boneless-skinless chicken breasts at our store are $24.99 a kilo. A whole organic chicken is only $9.99 a kilo. This is down towards the cost of regular meat. (A chicken’s bone mass is not that high, so it seems like a good deal.)

We’ve bought these chickens to roast before, but I’ve always been intimidated to actually go ahead and butcher one myself. Today, I decided that it can’t be that hard. Guess what? I looked it up and it looks really easy!

Here’s two different instruction sites on cutting up a chicken. The first separates the legs from the bird first, good if you want to cook the breast in one dish and the legs in another. The second butterflies the whole bird, good if you want to serve half chickens with both light and dark meat in each portion. Both look like they’ll be easy to do the first try.

Quartering method

And while I’m talking about chickens, here’s a pet peeve of mine. A chicken does not have breasts although it has a breast. These are not mammary glands. The meaning of the word breast here is the second sense, namely “the fore or ventral part of the body between the neck and the abdomen” (Merriam-Webster).

 › food     2007-07-28 19:20   ...0 comments

A few months back we all went for lunch at a local Fish ‘n Chips place. We ordered an appetizer of deep fried Smelts. Ordering deep-fried fish doesn’t seem like a really appropriate appetizer when your main course is deep-fried fish, but hey — Smelts are good!

This deep-fried fish lunch really got me to thinking — what if the fish were combined into one dish. Of course, I then immediately thought of a Turducken, and that led me to the concept of a turducken of the sea, or perhaps Fish Turducken.

It would go something like this, take a deep fried smelt, and embed that into a deep fried rainbow trout, put that into a deep fried salmon, insert that into a deep fried swordfish and jam it all into a deep fried whole tuna.

I think it’s brilliant. When can the marketing begin?

 › food     2007-04-14 11:20   ...1 comment

It’s post christmas christmas time again and I’m thinking about Turkey cooking. I always roast meat using a meat thermometer because it takes all the guesswork out of a great roast. Even though the thermometer is a superior method for knowing doneness, you still need some idea of how long it will take — in order to avoid having your turkey finish cooking hours before your guests arrive!

I usually go on the internet to see what’s what. The other resource that’s been useful is a meat book that Mum has had for years. The problem is that these resources often disagree on cooking times. The book recommends much longer cooking times, even though modern turkey standards require higher internal temperatures.

The reason for this discrepancy has always puzzled me. Finally I have found a site that gives the reason. The National Turkey Federation explains the shorter times by saying that today’s turkeys are bred to increase the amount of white meat. Since white meat cooks faster, your turkey is done sooner.

That page also gives a table of times for preparing turkey at 325 °F.

I realize that several of our friends are using the high heat method with turkey flipping, for some reason I’m sticking with the 325 temperature. It’s always worked in the past! And for the record, the longer roasting times consistently produce juicy delicious birds at my Mum’s place; it seems that as long as it’s cooked, a different length of time in the oven isn’t that critical.

 › food     2006-12-28 11:21   ...0 comments

Stuffed grape leaves are a cultural tradition all over the Mediterranean.

Many people are familiar with them by their greek name dolmades. In our family they are simply called feuilles de vigne (grape leaves), and we make them with ground beef as well as rice.

I think they’re a real treat, but I know from family lore that making them well is something that can only be taught by example. Accordingly, we asked my dad’s cousins to our place for a rolling session. It was a lot of fun, produced lots of tasty food, and now I think we can do it ourselves.

 › food     2006-11-28 14:37   ...0 comments

Just found this link from one of the sites I frequent.

This rose is made of chocolate. Believe it.

 › food     2006-07-19 17:27   ...2 comments

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is the publisher of the widely read Nutrition Action Healthletter.

I recently came across the saturated vs. trans fat debate in an online article, and it is interesting that the position of the CSPI on trans fats has run the gamut over the last twenty years or so.

An article by a detractor aims to pin the CSPI for flip-flopping and trying to cover its role in promoting trans fats through Nutrition Action. The article has many problems, and you really have to work to sift the interesting historical information regarding CSPI from the random flaming the author indulges in.

Likely the truth is in the middle; we all know that eating too many saturated fats is not good… and that movie popcorn is bad for you. However, the essay does quote Nutrition Action’s comments over the years, and if you look at them (distinct from the rest of the rant) they don’t make a pretty package.

I come down on the side of trying to consume products that are made of food, and not chemical substitutes and fillers — or gobs of mouth-pleasing fat. If, however, you believe the author’s claim that the CSPI was the central figure in the creation of the trans fat industry then they have a lot to answer for and have not done much answering.

Read the essay and judge for yourself!

ETA: See also CSPI on Wikipedia. A bit slanted too, but to me the news is that there is a possible slant. Perhaps it’s just the name, but I did not know there was controversy over this organization at all.

 › food     2006-05-18 16:11   ...0 comments

Kevin Hayes showed me this hilarious review of the Breakfast From Hell: Swanson Hungry Man All Day Breakfast. Wow. Imagine a product whose main selling feature is a callout that reads “Over 1 pound of food”. This is not for a family folks… it’s for one person.

This reminds me of the 30 000 calorie sandwich. Man. What is wrong with people.

And did I mention that people Deep-fry Turkeys? And that the Underwriters Laboratory disapproves? (Don’t forget to view the UL video available at that last link!)

 › food     2005-12-13 22:58   ...5 comments

Finally, a restaurant for Jen.

 › food     2005-10-29 00:49   ...0 comments

Well, my beer blew through its first stage of fermentation. This is the stage where the yeast eats sugar and puts out alcohol (and some other byproducts). At this point, the beer is ready to condition for a few weeks, giving the yeast time to consume their initial byproducts and flesh things out a bit.

At this exact moment the beer is 4.1% alcohol by volume, which is a bit better than I’d hoped. I was projecting 3.8% or something. (I started off a bit lighter than I had wanted, so a bit heavier is good.)

I’ve tasted it and compared with some of the unfermented stuff I saved and refrigerated. The beer tastes much less sweet now. It’s quite bitter actually. (I am not sure if that is going to be tempered by the aging process, but it is possible that I over-hopped the beer a bit.) It is certainly not undrinkable. The taste of it right now is sort of like a greenish cask-condition ale. Actually, it is a greenish cask-condition ale. Give it two weeks and you could serve it at the Arrow and Loon.

Anyway, it’s been transferred to a new container (a glass carboy) to get it off the dead yeast cells and brewing sludge that it was in when it was in the plastic bin. It looks mighty nice I have to say.

Next time I’ll stop a bit sooner in the transfer. As you can see, some of the sludge made it. But a lot more was removed, so I’m not going to get excited about that.

 › food     2005-09-30 01:41   ...1 comment

As some of you may know, I have decided to try home brewing. I have got all the stuff. I have tried it. This is my brief report: I hate our stupid stove.

Making the beer was a challenge, but the biggest challenge was that our stove could not be bothered to heat things to the boiling point.

As you can imagine, you need to boil a lot of water to make a big batch of beer. Three to four gallons (roughly 11-15 liters) at a time, in fact. The biggest pot we owned had a capacity of about two gallons. So I went out to Zeller’s on Saturday night and bought a $29 stock pot. Got it home and found that it wouldn’t really boil water on the stove.

Why would a pot not boil water you may ask? Well, our #%@^%# stove has a flat ceramic surface. The pot does not have a flat bottom. If you were looking at this pot upside down, you’d see a depression like a bowl cut into the bottom. Almost like looking at the bottom of a frisbee, except not as deep and with a much larger rim. I assume the purpose of this is to sit right down over an electric stove burner, kind of hugging it or something.

Our stove has no damn burners except under a sheet of glass. This means that when the pot is on the stove it has a nice air gap between the bottom of the pot and the stove. In other words, the pot is incompatible with our stove. Who thought you were going to have to evaluate compatibility of cooking appliances.

Of course, by the time I convinced myself of this I had 3 gallons of not-boiling beer on my stove.

I threw out the batch of beer and went to the Bay and bought a proper pot. $179 on sale for $80. Grr. Then I went to a homebrewing store and bought more ingredients with which to start again. Grr.

Got the new pot home. It worked better, but not that much better. You see the stove element is probably 8” across, and these pots are like 14-15” across. The stove manual pompously explains that the stove will only work if the pots are “matched to the burner size”. I hate this stove. How likely do you think I am to find a 20 quart pot that is 8” across at the bottom. Grr. Anyway, the beer boiled a bit, so I am hoping that that will be sufficient.

I was prepared for problems with the beer, but I don’t think that it’s a stretch to suggest that a stove should be able to boil water in a stock pot. A stove that doesn’t cook: Who decided that this was going to be a good plan? (And you can’t cook with Aluminum. And you can’t cook with cast iron. And you can’t move the pots around while you’re cooking. And it can’t be cleaned except with expensive cream. And. And. And. Who are these people!)

I started at 9:30 am and finished at 9:30 pm. Phew. I am very tired now, and a bit surprised at what can go wrong in a recipe with only three steps: Boil grain sugars. Add pinecone bits. Add yeast.

Despite all this, I am hopeful that the beer will be good. I am working from Palmer’s How To Brew eBook which is excellent. I have read much of the book, including all the beginner stuff. I do like the idea of brewing my own beer, but I think it will take several batches before I get the hang of things. In particular I need to develop techniques to avoid dirtying sanitized things that I’ve used and will use again.

 › food     2005-09-26 01:10   ...2 comments

Went to nurd_grrl’s 29th tonight at Edoko on Queen St.

This place is a lot of fun. Teppanyaki is a Japanese tradition of cooking at the table. And in a restaurant it’s all about being an entertainer as well as a cook.

We were served by the head chef, and there must have been like 15 people around this giant grill. He juggled his utensils, shot food into the air, caught leftovers like shrimp tails in his basket-like hat, and created giant columns of flames before our eyes.

One of the best parts, highly anticipated by the guest of honour, was an Onion Volcano (see recipe for onion eruption here). Basically the chef takes an onion half, inverts some of the segments to stack them, then fills the onion with flammable liquid and water. Light it up and a huge column of flame erupts from the stack. Awesome.

My dinner was a teriyaki salmon/steak combo. Fantastic, and the chef provided complimentary shrimp appetizers as well as rice and grilled soba noodles to top it all off. Miso soup and salad too!

Jen enjoyed her red bean ice cream for dessert. A fun place to go — a little pricey — but well worth the price for 3 hours of good food and great entertainment.

I’m sure we will go again.

 › food     2005-09-24 21:54   ...0 comments

It was warm here yesterday and I decided that we needed something that could be cooked up without heating the kitchen too much. I headed to the grocery store.

This kind of trip is often a disaster for me. I wind up wandering around the store coming up with ideas that will not work together. Ultimately I get frustrated and leave hungry or I buy enough food for 50. For whatever reason, though, I actually came across food I wanted to buy: Bison inside-round medallion steaks. They looked like filet mignon, looked super-tasty and looked quite reasonably priced.

The question became, what to serve on the side? I generally feel that you need at least two things on the side — more is better. I wandered to the produce section and found local corn on the cob… quite good looking despite it being quite early in the season. A large vidalia onion and a yellow pepper called out for tasty grilling. Then I got lazy and grabbed a bag of pre-washed organic romaine and a jar of light organic caesar salad dressing. A box of local organic grape tomatoes caught my eye as well.

Of course I wound up overgrilling the steaks a bit. (I use a meat thermometer and was aiming for around 145°F for rare-ish, but even a meat thermometer won’t help you if you leave the grill to check your email…) The steaks weren’t beyond well-done though, so the meal was still super-tasty — with a glass of red wine to wash it all down.

 › food     2005-07-29 18:10   ...0 comments

Well, we are in our house. There will be full disclosure of this event in the near future, along with some of the adventures along the way. Suffice it to say for now that we are very happy.

This blog entry is brought to you by my need to bookmark manageyourcellar.com. A free tool to help you keep track of the various wines you may have. No time to play with this today, but I want to remember it for the future.

 › food     2005-06-23 17:29   ...1 comment

Another great Canadian micro-brew is being bought by a faceless mega-brewer. This time it’s Creemore Springs which is being bought by Molson.

Apparently Molson wants to keep everything the same at the craft brewer, but increase their sales, spending and geographical penetration. That seems like a contradictory statement to me. We have seen this happen in the past, and I’ve always had to find a new beer.

Ah, for the lost days of Hart’s Festive Brown Ale (link via archive.org).

 › food     2005-04-23 15:39   ...0 comments

Prologue: Last week May calls us up to tell Jen of a very important development in the history of hot beverages: The release of Chantico Drinking Chocolate¹ by Starbucks. Advertised as a drinkable dessert and a return to the traditional manner of consuming chocolate… drinking it!

Now, usually Jen and I are Bridgehead type people but this development promised to lure us over to starbucks when the time was right…

May claimed to be torn about telling us over the phone because she might miss the experience of watching Jen try the chocolate for the first time.

Several Days Later…

Read the Complete Entry

 › food     2005-01-29 11:46   ...5 comments

Guess my identity!

• I have been used for centuries to treat stomach and liver problems
• My name in norwegian is gurkemeie
• Like Henna, I am used as a skin dye in Mehndi
• Curcumin is a component of me. A powerful anti-oxidant, its chemical formula is C21-H20-O6.
• May says I make Dan smell like dirty. (Or, like feet.)
• I can stain Colin and Jen’s stainless steel pan yellow.
• I am evil incarnate.
• I am Turmeric.

I seem all-powerful, but I may be susceptible to this bad boy:

• Its chemical formula is: NaHCO3.
• It can put out electrical fires.
• Overdosing on it can cause: spasms, convulsions, frequent urination and constipation.
• When mixed with an acid it releases bubbles!
• It can treat mold and fungal growth in a horticultural setting
• It can remove paint from old brushes.
• It’s Baking Soda!

 › food     2004-09-07 22:31   ...1 comment

I’ve been working on this entry on and off for the last week, as I’ve had time. I did most of the writing of it at 30 000 feet on a United Airways flight from San Francisco to Chicago, possibly the most uncomfortable flight I’ve ever been on.

I’ve been in San Francisco for Apple’s WWDC developers conference. Chris and I arrived on Saturday around noon (to get a reasonable airplane fare you have to stay over a Saturday night, so we arrived early).

We had the entire day on Sunday to ourselves. A quick check of the interweb revealed that we could rent a car for about US$45 for the day. So we had a car. What to do with a car in the bay area? Well, the Napa valley (see also here) is about 90 minutes from San Francisco by car… and Chris and I do like drinking wine… so that became the plan for the day.

Read the Complete Entry

 › food     2004-07-04 14:12   ...0 comments

I think it will be popular with Dan, since he’s willing to make tea with twigs. I believe it will not be popular with Carrie.

 › food     2003-11-30 16:34   ...0 comments