Food from Durham, NC

Helloooooooooo!!

I still have a lot of food adventures from the summer to tell you about, but it occurs to me that it might take a while for me to get to those posts... so these posts will no longer go in chronological order.  But I think that's okay!  Because I have two exciting other food adventures from Durham.  Not Durham Region, where I'm originally from, but Durham, NC - the land of Blue Devils (booo!), Bulls Minor League Baseball, and pretty awesome food!

On Wednesday, we celebrated the glorious birth of Kristen, one of the contributors of this blog.  She invited us out to the patios on Geer St. Garden in Durham, NC.  If you sit on the picnic benches on the patio, you can bring your dog! :) From what I understand, the restaurant tries to use local, in-season ingredients to ensure a fresh and delicious meal.  I ordered off the special menu and got the tostadas with sweet potatoes and a whole bunch of other stuff on it.  It was delicious!

My tostadas with sweet potatoes.

Kristen's new arm tattoos!

Happy birthday Kristen!!! :)

Okay, next...

Yesterday, we decided to get burgers.  Our friends Lisa and Evan had informed us that the best burgers in the triangle could be found at Bull City Burgers in downtown Durham, NC.  I'll let the experts decide on what's "best", but this place certainly did not disappoint!  

I got a beef burger with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, jalepenos, Bull City Burger's hot sauce, and aioli.  And ketchup.  Also, if you have foursquare on your phone, your first check in will get you a free side order of Dirty Fries (which are just regular old potato fries)!  It was delicious!  The beef patty was really tasty and I'd definitely go back! :)

My Bull City Burger :)

There are lots of great food options in this area, so I hope you can try it out too!

Bye!!

Yuna

Cooking After 8 - Episode 1 - Calzones

Hi again!

Our new contributor, Mysha, has created a new cooking show for all y'all.  Needless to say, we were in a silly mood this evening; but what's the point of life if we can't be a little silly, right?! We think the video speaks for itself, so we hope you enjoy!!!

P.S.  Here's the recipe we used.  The calzones were delicious!  Click here now!  Doooo iiittttt!!! :D

Guys, I'm not gonna lie... This pasta salad is amazing!!!

Today, Mysha (one of my new roommates) invited me to join her at a little bakery in Durham, NC called Daisy Cakes.  Long story short about Daisy Cakes - it was awesome!!!

I had the fennel, zucchini, and something or other sandwich, seen here.  It was so delicious.  But actually, the most memorable thing on that plate was that little scoop of pasta salad.  I don't know what was in it, but it was deeeeee-licious!!!  

Sandwich with super amazing awesome pasta salad.

I was told the dressing for the pasta salad was a balsamic vinaigrette.  Which seemed like a huge lie, but y'know, what do I know.  It also had fennel in it, but it was kinda soft and not too crunchy, which made it even better.  And it also reminded me of how I actually kinda like fennel!

So I went home... And I was committed to making this happen.  Making what happen, you ask?  Making that gosh darn delicoius pasta salad.  So Mysha was kind enough to take me to the grocery store and I bought me some fennel.  I also bought me a tomato.  and some arugula.

I got home and I started cooking.  Here's the breakdown:

- boil water, make pasta (i used whole wheat pasta)

- thinly slice fennel.

- pick basil from Mysha's garden - like 10 leaves or something.  Chop that up real thin.

- chop up that tomato into bite size pieces.

- just before i throw in that pasta, blanche the fennel.  for like 30 seconds.

- mix together some olive oil, and (wait for it...) a MIX of red wine vinegar AND balsamic vinegar.  aw yeah.  (I did like 1/3 balsamic, 2/3 red wine vinegar).  I'm usually pretty cheap when it comes to salt, but I put in a relatively generous amount of salt and some pepper.

- arugula.  wash the arugula, put it in a bowl with the fennel and tomato.  A bit of salt on the arugula seems to help too.

- once the pasta is done, wash it down with cold water.

- mix EVERYTHING together!!!!!!!!

the result: don't wanna toot my own horn or anything... but you get deliciousness.  gloriousness.  something worthy of Zeus' dinner table.

My not-so-modest pasta salad.

Something else you should also know about Daisy Cakes: they made a gingerbread cookie that had bacon in it.  Surprisingly delicious.

Bacon Gingerbread Cookie.  You can really taste the bacon!

Hope you enjoy the pasta salad as much as I do!  And if you ever find yourself in Durham, NC, get yourself to Daisy Cakes!

Love and exploding props, 

Yuna

PS - asian glow.

exciting news!

Friends... I have excellent news.

Soon, we shall have a guest contributor to our food blog.  She may even become a permanent contributor.  If we're lucky. 

Stay tuned. 

:)

- Yuna

retroactive post 2 - cafes and restaurants in TO

One summer afternoon, my parents and I were walking around "midtown" Toronto (Mount Pleasant and Eglinton) and we stumbled upon this (what I believe to be a) French cafe.  

They had a very nice visual display of their desserts... which I sadly did not try.  Cuz it was mad expensive.

My dad got a burger and salad. Tres French.

I got this baguette sandwich thing with proscuitto.  It tasted exactly like a baguette with proscuitto.

Then we drove down to Liberty Village to watch my brother play recreational soccer.  He's improved vastly since he was 4; at that age, he used to crouch down and pick clovers.  

Then we decided to have my mom redeem her mother's day gift, which was a dinner at Rodney's Oyster House in downtown Toronto.

This is allegedly a giant clam... perhaps one of the world's giant?  I don't remember, and I can't read that small print.

I had to get me some clam chowdah (sic)

This is a bunch of seafood in tomato sauce/soup.  It must've been good beacuse my mom destroyed this dish!

This is my scallop linguine thing, which was also delicious!

Danny got a lobster, also tasty.

Danny is excited to eat his lobster with his lobster bib!

My dad, of all people, got a salad.  I don't know what was up with him that evening.  Maybe he was still full from that french burger he had a few hours earlier.

There you have it, some more food shenanigans in Toronto.  Yet more reasons why y'all should visit the T-dot some day! :)  (Bring cash.  This stuff ain't always cheap...)

retroactive blog post 1 - Canada Day at the Cottage

Canada Day at the Cottage!

This one is pretty self-explanatory... beer, bbq, and other foodstuffs.  There are Webers pictures too, but that will have to be its own blog post since I don't have the pictures handy.

This fridge was filled with beer within 10 minutes of us stepping foot in the cottage.  Obviously we had our priorities straight.

Charlsie was our grillmaster for the weekend!  What an epic grillmaster!  

Here we have some grilled chicken with generous amounts of Bulls Eye BBQ sauce, and copious amounts of grilled vegetables (olive oil and salt and pepper).

Here's my cheesy pull apart bread that I found off of pinterest!  This is a sourdough loaf that I cut a grid into.  Then I sauteed mushrooms and red onion in olive oil, and seasoned it with salt and pepper.  Then I shoved all that good stuff in between the crevices of the sourdough bread, and also shoved in some cheese.  Then I baked that bad boy for a while, probably in a 325 oven or something around that.  Then we enjoyed the crap out of this thing.

And behold - our Canada Day light brite!

a random smattering of foods

This post is just an exposé of food I ate recently.  Mainly because I like taking pictures of food for the sole purpose of putting them on this blog.

Here are my fish taco's I had at this Mexican restaurant in Whitby, Ontario called Los Cabos Cantina.  Our server told us that no one leaves the restaurant hungry.  He was right.  If you ever happen to be in Whitby, check it out!  

My dad has been learning to cook this summer and he's been impressing the heck out of me and my mom!  He's quite good at Chinese cuisine.  Here is a red snapper fish he made with some sauce... hahaha I forget exactly what it is, but it tasted better than any Chinese restaurant fish!  Yay dad!

And finally, here is a tiny little Haagen-Daz that I ate.  It had chunks of peanut butter in it, which was weird, but still tasty.  And the tiny little spoon comes with the tiny little serving :)  And by "tiny little serving," I suppose I actually mean, "a properly portioned serving."

More pictures to come! :)

pappardelle or something other

Some time ago, my parents and I were watching TV.  A Chatelaine commercial came on and this lovely pasta dish flashed across the screen.  It looked so damn good, I had to find the recipe.  So here it is: roasted-tomato pappardellaliwjfeaklsdfasklle.  I can never remember how to spell this type of pasta.  I also don't know how to pronounce it.

A lot of blogs give you information about the ingredients that go into the dish.  So, in an attempt to class up my blog posts, here is some information on the pappardelawoeifasllle noodle.  It is a flat noodle.  Made of....flour, let's say.  And I suppose some egg, since that was on the front of the package.  The pappardellewhatchamacallit was presented in little nests.  I thought they wouldn't be enough.  But don't be fooled - these bad boys explode when you boil them!  Two nests was definitely enough for one person - very filling!

Okay, so here's the recipe.  You have your noodle thingy, cherry or grape tomatoes, orange juice (ya, i know, shocker - but a very key part of the recipe!), and herbed goat cheese.  And olive oil, and salt and pepper.  And I'm sure you could add other stuff like chilli Flakes.  But, I feel like this recipe is best kept simple.  

You read the recipe in the link above, you follow the instructions, and voila!  Roasted Tomato Pappapskfejioafdfnwepapernoodle!  

The dish with the noodles I cannot pronounce.  Nor spell.

I thought it was really tasty.  For a pasta-ish dish, it's actually kinda light.  But still very filling.  And it was easy, so that's a bonus!

We also grilled up some vegetables to eat on the side.  Actually, I'm not sure if we ate these grilled vegetables on the same day as the pappafwelkflle, but I had a picture of it, so I'm posting it.  Olive oil, salt, pepper, grill.  Done!

Here we have asparagus, eggplant, and zucchini.  

There we have it.  A bientot!

Yuna

Food I ate in May and probably in June

It's been faaaaaaaar too long since I last wrote something.  Sorry :(  But here's why:  it's because I'm lazy.


So here's a quick update of some food things I've eaten in the past few weeks.


After my brother's eye got better (his retina detached, poor guy - he's all better now!), we went to celebrate at a new Korean restaurant in Richmond Hill.  It... suuuuccckkkeeed.  Hence, the restaurant will not be named, because I don't want to get sued for something I write on the Internet.  Okay, it didn't suck that badly, but it definitely wasn't as good as other Korean BBQ places I've been.  In any case, the food presentation was nice, and is sure to make Evan jealous of my whereabouts.


We had bulgogi (korean bbq of some sort) on the grill and in a soup-y kind of thing.  

On the grill.  Note how small these pieces are.  So sad.

This is my cool before and after picture.  The top portion is raw; when cooked, it turns in to this soupy thing with mushrooms and green onion and peppers and other good stuff.

Kay, moving on to another point in the past.  There's this really good breakfast restaurant chain called Cora's that started in Quebec.  They make really good food, though it is kinda pricey.  In any case, I got this french toast with fruit on it and it was pretty dece!

French toast with fruit thing from Cora's.

While my brother was still recovering from his eye injury, my friend and I saw this recipe on Pinterest to make popsicles with fresh fruit.  So we bought a cheap popsicle set and some fruit and boom!  Popsicles.

Popsicles.  Well, I guess it's just a popsicle.

June 1 weekend is the best weekend in Pickering.  For the past few years, we've had ribfest roll into town, and it's the one event I get most excited for in our little suburban town.  There really isn't much that goes on, or at least not much that I get way excited for.  And if ribs and other fried food are gonna set up shop at City Hall, then yes, I will be there.

My friend and I have made this an annual tradition.  We usually get a half rack of ribs each and share to see who made the better purchase.  I also usually get a bloomin' onion too.  Mmmmmm :)

Ever since I moved to C-dot Hill, I've missed the frozen yogurt from Yogen Fruz.  From what I understand, Yogen Fruz is a company from Toronto that makes frozen yogurt (duh).  They have these yogurt bars that they mash together with fresh fruit of your choosing.  So it's not quite as tart as the fro yo I like in Chapel Hill, but it tastes just like the fruits you put in it!  ...because they put fruit in it... yeah.  anyways.  It's good.    

Yogen Fruz.  Hooray! :)

That's about it from me.  I have more things to post about.  But I shall have to do that later because my poor doggies haven't had dinner yet. :(  Poor guys.  I'm a bad sister.  

Byeeeeeeeeee! :)

CSA Week 1 - Kristen's Dinner #2

Classic Pesto with Whole Grain Fussili


3 cups basil leaves - stemmed and chopped
3 cloves garlic - roughly chopped
1/2 cup pine nuts (you can toast them or just use plain... I used plain)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
some red pepper flakes, duh
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup fresh shredded Parmesan (or Romano) cheese

Put everything in food processor and purée until smooth. Toss with cooked pasta. Maybe add some bread or tomatoes. 

Enjoy - so much better than the fancy canned sauce or paste. Appreciate the silence and opportunity for seconds in Evan's absence.

CSA Week 1 - Kristen's Dinner #1

On Tuesday (yesterday) Lil' Evan and I got our first CSA box (2012 Mid Chatham Farmers Alliance CSA)! We got green beans, a head of garlic, red and golden beets, kohlrabi, basil, and braising greens. 


Tonight for dinner I made roasted beets, sauteed greens, and spicy Italian sausage. MMMMM!

Roasted Beets:

1. Beetroots, washed and quartered (or smaller if the beetroot is HUGE)
2. Olive oil
3. Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 deg. F. In glass baking dish, mix ingredients, and spread evenly. Cover with foil. Bake for 35 minutes (or until almost fork-tender), then uncover and bake for another 10 minutes (if you want them to be a little burnt/crunchy). 

Sauteed Greens:

1. Braising greens - this week we had a mixture of rainbow chard, kale, and beetroot greens. Wash, spin dry, and chop
2. Sesame oil
3. Sesame seeds
4. Soy sauce (~ 1 tablespoon)
5. Apple cider vinegar (~1  tablespoon)
6. 3 garlic cloves, minced
7. Fresh ginger - shredded (best to use a ceramic ginger grater), about a tablespoon (and use the juices too!)
8. Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Use a LARGE skillet. Put it on stove just under medium high - while you wait for it to heat, add the sesame seeds and stir continuously until slightly browned; remove seeds. Add 3 tablespoons sesame oil, get hot (but don't burn the oil!). Add garlic and ginger, stir constantly until just before the garlic browns. Add soy sauce and vinegar, stir, add the greens. Use tongs to toss and coat, add toasted sesame seeds, toss to coat, and cook until greens just begin to wilt (the beetroot will cook down, the chard will still be pretty green). Turn off heat, cover skillet, and let rest for about 5 minutes. 

Delicious! I separated half out in tupperware for lunch tomorrow.... and wanted more of the greens, which were under everything else, so I just ate the whole thing. Now I feel sick... and SATISFIED!

Ok, off to MCH trivia! 

nooooooodles thai style

Bonjourrrrrr (that's French for "Hellooooooo")

Ok, so this dish could've been way better had I added hot sauce.  This is stir-fried noodles with some crap in it.  Well, not literally crap, but crap as in "stuff," as in "food ingredients."  Although it was really bland without any hot sauce, it still had some nice Vietnamese flavours (namely, mint and basil...God I hope those are Vietnamese flavours!)

Here are some pictures!!

String beans, because the recipe called for them.

All the other ingredients.  We made it vegan by taking out chicken and replacing it with tofu.  And instead of regular mushrooms (whatever those are), we used enoki mushrooms (the skinny white ones). And instead of sugar, we used agave syrup, and instead of minced ginger, we used ginger juice that my mom happened to have.  Oh and vegetable broth instead of any other meat-type broth.  

So here's the first mistake I made... I should've fried the tofu separately first, so that it wouldn't break apart while I mixed it up with all the other ingredients.  Oh well... better luck next time.  It still tasted okay.

Magically, the dish is done!  How the hell did that happen??  

I have to go walk my dog now, so hopefully this blog post was sufficient to help you in making your own noodle-y dish.  I know... detail is my forte.

Byeeeeeeeee! :)

  

Stuff you should not eat

This is a list of things you should not eat, aka, things you can find in Pickering and Toronto.

Don't eat house centipedes, those ugly jerkfaces.  I hate them so much.  At least they're slightly smaller up here... but not by much.  They're pretty gigantic in NC.

Don't eat my dog Pado, looking like a lunatic.  This was after a 4.5 km jog.  For you Americans, 1 kilometer = 0.621371192 miles (according to Google).

Don't eat my dog Buddy, chillin' in my backyard.

Don't eat my dog Pado, who collapsed in the bathroom after the 4.5 km jog.

Don't eat my dog Pado, who is hiding in the bathtub, because he is afraid of life.

Don't eat my dog Buddy, peering into the bathroom, wondering why Pado is such a fool.

Don't eat the CN Tower and the Sky Dome.

Don't eat Pado, who is very bored.