It’s great how the holidays can inspire you to cook. Maybe it’s the fear of judgement by the family that makes us strive for the best! The key is to find something that tastes impressive, without being too complicated and frustrating to make. This is one of those dishes…
Continue reading Potatoes au Gratin – Holiday Brunch
To end my little tour of Prince Edward county, I want to share a recipe that I cobbled together that was inspired by the spirit of the PEC.
This dish is made up of seasonal, local ingredients – the cheese actually migrated back to Toronto with us, from Black River Cheese Company in Prince Edward County.
The idea for the recipe came from a combination of two things: the fancy pants poutine we had in Wellington, and the fact that I had bought some cheese curds and couldn’t think of anything better to do with them than make poutine. Since I had never made poutine before, this was a perfect opportunity. J suggested we do sweet potato, to change things up a bit – and it was a fantastic suggestion.
A shameful admission from this proud Canadian girl, I haven’t really had much poutine in my life. Being a strict vegetarian for a good number of my adult years, I didn’t try poutine. To be honest, some of the poutines I saw weren’t even trying to change my mind – gloopy “gravy”, greasy fries and fake mozzarella doesn’t appeal to me. I guess it really isn’t that big of a surprise that it hasn’t been on my ‘to do’ list.
Not long ago, J and I went to a fun tapas restaurant that focused on local ingredients, and we tried a really good unusual poutine. So when we saw it on the menu in Wellington – another poutine that stretched the boundaries – we happily ordered it.
To be honest, I really should have tried to make it sooner.
Not to rain on anyone’s grease parade, but making poutine at home can actually be healthy. The most fattening thing in the whole dish is the oozy cheese – and it’s oozy melty goodness is used to its full advantage when layered this way. The sweet potato ‘fries’ are baked with a little bit of oil, and some smart seasoning, and the gravy is vegetarian with only a bit of oil and some milk to add to the fat content. Compare this to the usual “heart attack in a bowl” that is traditional poutine.
The verdict? It was amazing, if I do say so myself! The gravy was probably the biggest question mark, because I used a new recipe. I probably would use less milk next time – it tasted amazing, but am I wrong to think a milky coloured gravy just seems weird? It didn’t thicken as much as I thought – but it was thick enough for this, and not gloopy like you get when you thicken with corn starch.
Finally – I try making some Canadian food on this blog!!! It only took nearly a year!!
… and with this, I end my yammering about Prince Edward County (for a little while, anyway).
This is my usual way of dealing with recipes – I steal from them and I smash them together.
Until I started my blog, I didn’t really follow recipes closely. I usually just use them for inspiration. I figure out what ingredients I have on hand, and I Google my way to a few recipes that sound neat. I take a little bit from one and a little bit from another, and there we go!
Tonight’s dinner was fueled by my wish to bake a pasta dish, and the sweet potatoes that were waiting to fulfill their delicious destiny.
I took most of my inspiration from Martha Stewart: Baked Mushroom Linguine and Butternut Squash and Sage Lasagna. Some people like to mock Martha, but honestly I’ve had great success with recipes from her website. I’m not embarrassed to say that I enjoy her show (on the rare occasion I’m able to watch it) and it’s now one of my go-to sites when I can’t think of what to make for dinner.
On that note, I think I need to add her link to my blogroll. Done!
Soo… here’s what I did: I cooked up some rotini (ok, not either of the recommended types of noodle); baked my sweet potatoes as suggested in the squash recipe; loaded up a cheese sauce with some cream cheese, some Fizzy cheese from Quebec, herbes de provence, thyme, rosemary, nutmeg, cayenne and tangy mustard powder; sauteed some mushrooms and onions with mushroom broth; tossed it all together and threw it back in the oven topped with breadcrumbs. Whew!!
So, how did it turn out? Not bad! The cheese sauce is a little different from my usual (shock! I didn’t put any anise in it!) and I’m usually too lazy to make a meal and THEN put it in the oven to bake. I ended up putting in too many noodles, which meant the sauce wasn’t as vibrant and saucey as it should have been. Blerg! I didn’t think the breadcrumb thing through – it ended up being a little too dry, because the sauce was mostly absorbed into the pasta. So I had to add a little more liquid and stick it back in the oven. Live and learn.
