Homemade Bacon Vodka

When I first heard about Homemade Bacon Vodka....I thought to myself "WHHAAAAAAAAATTTTT?!". At first, I felt a little nauseated. Then, I became intrigued. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I'm a firm believer that bacon makes everything taste better. So, is it really that weird to make several batches of bacon flavoured vodka?

For starters, you might ask - what does one do with said vodka? Well, for years, I have been making Caesars with either plain (gasp) or pepper / Chile flavoured vodka. I've even been known on more than one occasion to spice things up by throwing a couple of spoonfuls of horseradish or wasabi into glass (which is delightful, although looks pretty nasty).

This would also be the perfect accompaniment to our annual Wine and Swine event. I mean...how awesome would it be to go to a party and receive a Bacon flavoured Caesar garnished with a strip of crispy bacon (Sorry pickled asparagus / spicy green bean / olives....you have been replaced), and then proceed to the main event - a whole Chinese style roasted pig. OMG! I think I have died and gone to food heaven!

But now, onto the recipe. Special thanks go to McAuliflower at Brownie Points Blog for the easy to follow recipe.

Pictures will have wait. I'm too busy wiping drool off my keyboard....

NOtaBLE - New Years Eve Party

Alright, so I admit that I haven't been too great at updating this blog. Truth is that I've been very busy stuffing my noggin' with good eats at NOtaBLE. So it wasn't such a big surprise to everyone who knows us that that's exactly where we ended up going for New Years' Eve.

Unlike years past where we have been to restaurants that made things a touch easier on themselves by doing a set course menu (aka prix fixe)...NOtaBLE did two seatings of à la carte. TWO!! Now, for those who do not know, à la carte (pronouced  /ælæˈkɑrt/) is french meaning "according to the menu". Or in layman's terms...it is a reference to a menu of items which are priced and ordered separately.

You can view the whole delectable New Year's Eve menu here.


Confit of Brome Lake Duck, Alpindon cheese gratin, roasted pear salad

Lobster and leek risotto, butter poached loster claw, Asiago cheese



1/2 dozen Pristine Oysters - On the half shell, Thai mango relish
(These were so good that I had another order all to myself)

From the Rotisserie - Prime Rib of 28 day-aged beef, oxtail and celery root pave



Double baked warm chocolate cake, chocolate sorbetto


Our entertainment for the evening was provided by Los Morenos. Their sound is a cross of many styles such as rumba, flamenco, jazz, and funk with an infectious dance beat that kept the dance floor packed all evening. I would love to see them play again in a heartbeat.

Of course, it has to be said that Chef spoiled us all by making homemade S'mores for us to all nosh on after we all rang in the New Year. I'm going to be honest here and say that I have never in the past been a fan of S'mores (I know....what's wrong with me?! I think it's the camping aspect of it that turned me off of them) but I'm a convert after eating these ones. You can just taste the LOVE...and look, you can see chef in action making them on the rotisserie! Also love the fact that everything is made from scratch. 'Nuf said.

Homemade S'mores

   



NOtaBLE - the restaurant

Have you ever been somewhere and had that perfect dish...One that you could eat for the rest of eternity? I've found my weakness at Chef Michael Noble's restaurant NOtaBLE. Seriously, where do I even begin?

Since our very first visit, it has become our most favorite restaurant to eat at. The place is hip, and happening...and who can resist all the feel good gourmet comfort food? It's also a place where I can safety say that I've eaten (and drank) my way through the constantly revolving seasonal menu several times over.

I'm salivating. I just can't help it. Even the thought of my next visit makes me hungry. Feeling...a bit like Pavlov's dog but I honestly can't help it. Besides, it's not every day that you can say that you have eaten food cooked by the first Canadian chef who competed against Iron Chef Morimoto on Iron Chef Japan (Episode 724 - Battle Potato).


Salmon Hash - the dish that started our "love affair" with NOtaBLE.

We found out about NOtaBLE via our friends Joanne and Jeff (Hi guys!), and now we are utterly and completely hooked. We've have laughed, cried, partied and even opened and closed the place on one occassion. Really, I should just let the photos speak for themselves. Yum! 

** Note: I'm normally too much of a glutton to remember to take photos before I tuck into the dishes (hence only one of the three tasting menus I've tried so far have actually made it up).

 

Butter Poached Venison. OMG ~ Enough said!
Chef, may we please have this on the menu all the time? Please please please??

  

AAA 28 day aged rib-eye - 12 oz

Spragg Farms Pochetta (available on Sundays)

  

Naturally-raised Chicken (available on Saturdays)

The NOtaBLE Burger inspiration - Wild Boar

 

Whole Grilled Sea Bream, lemon, thyme, buerre rouge

 

12 hour-braised & rotisserie-finished Galloway beef sandwich, mustard slaw

Market Menu

And finally, my favorite market menu yet - 1.5 pounds of amazing lobster! This menu was created in celebration of NJ's father who was a lobster fisherman. I have to say that I'm normally not a big lobster fan (I prefer crab)...but this was hands down THE BEST lobster I have every eaten. Look....I even remembered to snap all four courses of this one :)



 If you live in Calgary and you haven't been yet...you are missing out. Seriously. Go already.

  





 

My Halloween pumpkin turned into something delicious...Creamy Coconut Pumpkin Soup!

Each year in my neighbourhood, a local realtor and her team does a food drive for our city's food bank...and in exchange for a bag of non-perishables, gives out a pumpkin. In my quest to find another use for the annual Halloween Pumpkin (other than just for a jack-o-lantern or pumpkin pie), I decided on making a Creamy Coconut Pumpkin Soup.

It combines my love of Asian flavors, with the creaminess of pumpkin and it also gives me another reason to use my all-time favorite condiment - Sriracha. I think it's the perfect dish for fall...comfort food for a chilly evening (plus, it give me an excuse to be in the kitchen...I'm so busted!)

DH gave it two thumbs up...he noted that the heat is subtle, but creeps up on you after the first couple of slurps.

Creamy Coconut Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients:

3 to 4 shallots, peeled
1 1/4 pounds peeled pumpkin (or butternut squash)
2 tablespoons oil
2 cups canned coconut milk

2 cups of chicken broth

1 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves

1-2 Kaffir Lime Leaves

1 tablespoon Thai Red curry paste

a couple chunks of rock sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce (or to taste)

1 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha (or to taste)

Black pepper

minced green scallion (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Peel the pumpkin and set aside the seeds (these are great for roasting later). Cut the pumpkin into 1/2 inch cubes. You should have around 4 1/2 to 5 cups.
3. Toss the cubed pumpkin and the peeled shallot with 2 tbsp oil, place on a baking sheet in a single layer and roast in the oven for 40-50 minutes.
4. Place the shallots, pumpkin cubes, coconut milk, broth, cilantro leaves, Thai red curry paste, sugar and kaffir lime leaves in a large pot and bring to a boil.
5. Add the salt and simmer over medium heat until the pumpkin is tender, about 10 minutes.
6. Stir in the fish sauce and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt and/or fish sauce if desired.
7. Remove Kaffir lime leaves.
8. Blend with immersion blender.
9. Let the soup stand for an hour (it tastes better if you do this step, but you can always eat it right away if you're greedy), reheat just before serving.
10. Serve - grinding black pepper generously over soup.
11. Garnish with a sprinkle of minced scallion greens if desired (I used a sprig of cilantro instead)

Rocky Mountain Wine & Food Festival

Can you believe that this amazing Wine & Food festival has been running for thirteen years now?!

It is a local show that showcases more than 50 local area restaurants and more than 120 beverage exhibitors.

Every year, I've been meaning to go and check out this event...BUT it seems that every year, I just so happen to miss it because I waited too long to get my ticket and the event is sold out. So, this year I decided that I needed to stop being a serial procrastinator and bought myself my ticket ridiculously early. I arrived to the event on a cool, and snowy day, full of excitement/anticipation...and armed with my tasting glass, program guide and BlackBerry, I set about to wine and dine my way through the Grand Tasting Hall. And yes, you read that right...I took all my photos with a BlackBerry (sad, but true).

Now, I'm not going to write about absolutely everything I drank and ate (and boy, did I have a lot to drink) but just the stuff that was truly memorable. Besides, if I can be totally honest - as the night went on, my pictures got progressively worse. Funny how that works eh?

All in all, a great night out....and considering it was $30 for the ticket and $40 for 80 tasting tickets, for a grand total of $70, I left with a full and totally satisfied belly. Will definitely be back next year!

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The Kraken Black Spiced Rum

Shiver me timbers....'tis be not ye typical spiced rum! At a whopping 94 proof (47% alcohol), I tasted this bad boy on the rocks. This rum is distilled in Trinidad & Tobago, then infused with more spices and flavoring in Indiana.

What drew me in was the unique bottling. The Kracken has a couple of grip handles for ease of drinking whist on the pirate ship. Another thing that drew me in before even tasting it was the beautiful labelling. Seriously?! This rum has a Latin name (Acchiteuthis dux)...AND how can you resist a bottle that says:

BIZARRE & FIERCE Sea Creatures

As seen through the eyes of imagination

Rusted hook line 'n sinker, I had to be off in fer a taste. As fer th' taste, 'tis dark rich 'n smooth.

I detected chocolate and molasses, with a strong vanilla finish. Definitely something that would be wasted if you are serving it as a cocktail or even a highball. This one, I highly recommend to be served on the rocks - or if you must, with a splash of water (leave the mixed drinks to your trusty well brands). Then again, it's not me holding the bottle to your lips!

Best part is that this rum retails for approximately $20. Now go get yourself a bottle or two.


Ballast Stone 2004 Emetior Shiraz

This was a great wine which I found quite unusual from my typical Shiraz picks. Although my friends thought that I was nuts when I told them that I detected a hint of coconut in the nose, (What?! Is it wrong that I may have a better palate than my sommelier friends?) all I can say is "Ha! I'm right!" (doing my happy dance)...

The vines are apparently over 65 years old and the vino is matured in both American and French oak for 30 months. I detected smokin' vanilla, oak, chocolate and coconut with a hint of floral notes (courtesy of the violets). It's big and bold, with not too much of a tannin finish. Highly delicious!

I don't know where I can find this wine sadly. I need to look it up - because this one, I can seriously drink all the time.

Giuseppe Campagnola 2006 Amarone

I.LOVE.AMARONE. What more is there to say? I'm such a sucker for it...I'll try them all....

Made in the Passito (pah-see'-toe) method, the grapes are harvested and laid on racks until January when they are then crushed and fermented into wine. Because they essentially turn into raisins before being pressed, it results in a much more concentrated sugar ratio.



The result is a really full bodied wine where I detected an explosion of fruit. Bright jammy flavor with hints of blackberries, red apple, vanilla, oak and cola. Smooth and velvety, this puppy retails for approximately $40.

The Food

After all my drinking, I started to get a little tipsy (and hungry), so I went in search of some nosh. Pictures of my two favorite bites of the night. A delectable Foie Gras (sadly, I don't remember where this was from), and an unbelievable lamb lollipop (from Broken Plate).

Some honorable mentions need to go out to:
1. Quincy's for the Kim Chi Burger (although IMHO, it needed more Kim Chi)
2. Springbank Cheese for their amazing cheeses (I waited 20 minutes for a little taste of cheese heaven)
3. Kefi for tasty cheeses and olives

Preserving and Canning

Alright, so I'm the first to admit that this is the very first year I've EVER tried to do any type of canning/preserving...but I have to say that I'm very proud of my (tasty) results. What I thought would be a simple afternoon experiment with one or two recipes has turned me into a mean canning machine. Just ask my DH. I think I was living in the kitchen for a few weeks straight...preparing my jars, lids and bands...whilst totally ignoring any and all household duties (like making dinner).My love affair with canning/preserving really started a few years ago when my dear GF Joanne gave me a couple jars of her amazing Nanking Cherry Jam. I kid you not, I would take these jars and hide them from my DH so that they would not be inhaled within the first 20 minutes of being in our house. It's like heaven in a jar, and I would ration out the portions to ensure that it would last for as long as possible. Her kids can now rest safe knowing that I will not be competing for jars of her precious jam next year :)

Below is a small sampling of the goodies I have made. A huge shout out to the fine folks at both Bernardin and Epicurious for giving me the confidence and the guidance to try this out (and subject my DH to being even more of a human guinea pig taste tester). While I have mainly stuck to recipes I have found either online or in my small stack of preserving books, I'm thinking that I'm going to experiment a little more next year.

Savory

• Spicy Red Pepper Jelly - The fine folks at epicurious.com never let me down. My friends and family actually have started fighting over who gets the precious jars when I make a batch.
• Zesty Zucchini Relish (bernardin.ca)
• Spicy Beans (bernardin.ca)
• "Habby to Heat You" Hot Sauce - oh man....this is so good. Unfortunately, when I created this tasty (and oh so spicy) concoction, I forgot to take notes. Recipe for this one will follow eventually, when I make my next batch.

Sweet

• Kiwi Preserves (bernardin.ca)
• Nanking Cherry Jam (bernardin.ca)
• Blueberry Jam (bernardin.ca)

Welcome

Hi and welcome to my blog!

I've decided to create a site where I can share my experiences as I explore the world of libations and nosh. I was first inspired to do this about a year ago whilst looking on the web at a few of my favorite food bloggers' sites. And after watching Julie & Julia, I remember a few friends saying to me in the weeks that followed...."Now why don't you do something like that? It's totally up your alley!"

While I realize that I'm a huge procrastinator (case in point - It's taken me a year to get here), I'm going to try my best to keep posting at regular intervals. I also realize that not everyone may be as passionate (or some may perhaps be even more passionate) as I am about food, so I hope that I won't bore anyone (if there is anyone out there even reading this!).

But for now...here's a cool picture of some sushi that was delivered to our table!