Black eyes and fresh food

We are getting to be really busy these last few days, Dan started his exams, I picked up an extra shift today, and we are packing! As I write this Dan is sitting next to me packing up books and art supplies, humming along to Bob Marley. But, We have a few photos floating around that I wanted to share so here they are....

















At Dan's work (he works as a cook at a tapas bar and also a bar back) they had a Post Apocalyptic Fetish Night (what?) and those photos are the result of his costume... When he came home from work late that night I had no idea he was going to have a fake black eye and it really scared me for a minute.


















This is our lunch from Yesterday. French bread from a bakery in the Market here, 2 yummy Quebec cheeses, free-run eggs, Ontario green house tomatoes and really good Quebec spinach! Along with homemade mayonnaise, homemade chutney (that Dan's sister Rach gave us for Christmas) and black tea! Best lunch ever!
We went to the Market on Sunday (after we had a great (late) brunch at the Scone Witch, which is a really nice brunch/lunch place here and worth checking out!) and picked up some fresh Ontario produce, including these small red skinned potatoes. I thought we should use them for potato salad which is exactly what we did! It was so good and Dan plated it so beautifully! Such a summery meal!

Hearts,
-Ceilidh

Tea, yogurt and more!

As Ceilidh mentioned yesterday, we've been doing some pretty fun creative projects lately, so I'll tell you about a couple that I did, along with some food that I cooked the other night!

First was a (very late) birthday present for my Dad. He's a pretty big tea drinker, so after thinking about a few different options I decided to make some tea as "from scratch" as I could. No, I didn't grow the tea, but I mixed up a couple different black teas with cinnamon, cloves, a touch of pepper, and a few dried cranberries. Then, I put that all into tea bags which I sewed up and put on little tags. Finally, Ceilidh covered an empty tea box with brown paper, and I put all the tea bags inside.

Later, I decorated it a bit, put the ingredient list and a description of the tea, and finally my parents' address and sent the box in the mail just like that. I called it "Shelter From the Storm" because my dad is a big Dylan fan, and because the name fit the tea pretty well.

A few days ago I made something that we've been meaning to make for a while: Yogurt! It's easier than you could ever imagine, and takes less time than you'd think. Use whole milk to get nice thick yogurt, add granola and honey and enjoy!



Heat one quart of milk to 180°F. Cool to 113°F. Mix a bit of the milk with a couple tablespoons of yogurt. Add that mixture back into the milk. Let sit in a warm place for at least 5 hours. Refrigerate.




A couple years ago when I was living in France my Dad would constantly tell me that I should go out for omelette et frites. The other night, that's what we had for dinner! It's a quick, easy meal. Deep frying the fries takes a while, but if you don't have the time, you can bake them, or just pan fry the potatoes, for a less oily meal. Bon appetit!

Nihon Ryōri

Dan says:

"The beauty of Japanese cuisine is its simplicity. There generally aren't a lot of seasonings or spices, the ingredients themselves do the talking. Because of this, it's especially important to get good quality food. Genetically modified monster cucumbers aren't going to have any flavour, and you'll end up eating soy sauce with a side of sushi, just to get a bit of taste.

"Another bonus that comes from this simplicity is that Japan cooking requires minimal equipment and minimal cooking time, which saves time, money and precious nutrients!

"But enough about all that, what did we cook tonight?

"As far as equipment is concerned, we used pretty much the same things as last week: a knife, a couple bowls, a pot, a cutting board, and chop sticks. Plus I used a candy thermometer for deep frying.

"I made Vegetable Tempura, and even though it was my first time attempting it, it turned out great. The key to success for anything deep fried is a candy thermometer. I bought one a little while back at Home Hardware, it cost less than 5 bucks, and it is a must if you're going to deep fry anything or make candy or yogurt. They usually come with a little chart for temperatures, the one we got has it on the case, which is nice and convenient.

"Making something like tempura can sound intimidating, partly because the first thought that comes to mind is that you'll have to buy a bunch of specialty ingredients, or go through some complex process. On the contrary, everything I used we already had in our cupboards/fridge, and I barely glanced at the recipe that I found. Plus, I replaced the corn starch with more flour and nobody was the wiser.

"You can use whatever veggies you'd like, but we had shitake mushrooms, carrot, yam (these were our favourite), and broccoli. The batter is easy enough to make, the only thing I had trouble with was the fact that the recipe didn't say what consistency it should be. I really like when recipes tell you things like "Mix X, Y and Z together until a stiff dough forms", so you know if you've got it right or not. Especially when you're substituting ingredients, or are too lazy to use measuring spoons! But anyways, mine was something along the lines of pancake batter, without the lumps. Then it's just a matter of dipping and frying, just make sure your oil is around 375F, it's crucial!"



















Ceilidh says:

"Alright, I have been craving sushi lately like mad. If I could only pick one food to eat for ever it would defiantly be some kind of sushi. But, I kind of have an issue with buying a bunch of ingredients, like ginger and wasabi, that come from so far away, along with things like avocado and mango that you can't even grow in Canada! So, this weekend when Dan and I went grocery shopping at our local awesome shop, Herb & Spice, I decided I wanted to buy some sushi ingredients and try to focus on making a more local kind of sushi! I would say it was a pretty successful mission! The more unusual ingredients that we had to get before making our sushi was Nori Sheets, Rice vinegar and Sushi Rice.

"We already had all the veggies and Braggs (which is a really good kind of soy sauce). The rice vinegar was actually made in Quebec, so that was a really good find, and I was really excited about it. I suggest becoming a label reader to find out where the food you purchase actually comes from!!! The sushi rice was grown in Cali- which is too bad because it is traveling too far!!!!- and by mistake I bought Nori sheets that were from china but I know for sure you can get ones from Maine and I am sure there is a west coast Nori supplier.

"Other than that I just cut up a bunch of carrot, cuke and some cooked beets and packed in some alfalfa sprouts that Dan sprouted last week. This turned out to be nontraditional, as we didn't use ginger and wasabi.... or fish, but it did turn out really, really well! Sushi is really fun to make and is so beautiful and I always feel satisfied making it and using my hands so much. I challenge you to make some sushi that supports local food and see how good it is for yourself!"

Winter Stir-fry

Stir-fries are great because you can just throw whatever you have into them, so they can change a whole lot based on what's available at the time. For this particular mix of ingredients, we were able to get everything from either Ontario or Quebec (except the rice, oil and spices). Plus, it's super easy, healthy, and delicious, so we figured it would be a perfect first dish to post.

Starting Time: 6:39pm

All you need in the way of equipment is a knife, a cutting board, a pan or two, a pot or two, a stove and a wooden spoon or chopsticks to stir things up. In the way of food, grab some rice, carrots, beets, onion, potato, squash, tofu, tahini, Bragg's or soy sauce, cumin, ground cloves, olive oil, and salt and pepper.



Dice the potatoes, carrots and peeled squash, and boil them until soft. Meanwhile, start cooking the rice. Fry the onion in oil until translucent, add the other veggies, and some salt and pepper to taste. Peel and cut the beets in half, and boil them. Chop up the tofu, and put it in a pan with some oil. Add some tahini, Bragg's, cumin, a pinch of cloves, and some pepper, fry until browned. When the beets are a bit soft, drain them, and cut them into chunks.

Done!: 7:17pm = 38 minutes






Put the rice into shallow bowls, add veggies, then beets, then tofu. Serve with chop sticks and Bragg's. Enjoy!

Dishes

First things first: what's "dishes" all about?

We both love food, everything from buying it to baking it, from cooking it to consuming it. For this blog, we want to share some of our ideas about cooking:

You know what's going in! If you make everything from scratch, you know what's going into your meals, and what's going into your body. We try as much as possible to buy organic products, because of the benefits to our health and the earth.

You know where it's coming from When you buy raw ingredients, it's a lot easier to figure out where your food was grown/produced. Whether you're buying carrots at the farmer's market or raisins at a bulk food store, there's usually a label, or somebody you can ask to be sure of where your food is coming from. We also try as much as possible to buy food that was produced close to home, for us right now, that means Ottawa.

It's easy! Cooking doesn't have to be a long, difficult process, you can make delicious food without a whole lot of expertise.

It's quick! Making great food doesn't have to take all afternoon, sometimes making something from scratch can be just as fast as making something out of a box.

It's delicious! If you cook all your food from scratch you control everything that goes into what you're making! So, you can choose how many potatoes to put in, or how much pepper you can handle.

Now, nobody is perfect. We can follow some of these rules all of the time, all of these rules part of the time, but it's hard to follow all these rules all of the time! However, when we choose what dishes to put on this blog, we're going to try and pick ones that exemplify all of these qualities as well as possible, because our aim is to inspire you to do the same!

So, put on an apron, open up the cupboards, fire up the stove, and whip up some dishes!

the Decadent Life

Dec•a•dent - noun
one of a group of French and English writers of the latter part of the
19th century whose works were characterized by aestheticism, great
refinement or subtlety of style, and a marked tendency toward the
artificial and abnormal in content.

Our names are Ceilidh and Dan, we live in Ottawa, ON, Canada, and we are madly in love.
We decided to start this little project because we both have a ton of inspiring ideas

in our minds and a lot of creativity we wanted to share with you!

We think our life is pretty decadent even in its simplicity. We both only have part
time jobs, Dan is a student and we live in a tiny apartment, in cold, cold Ottawa.

Mainly we will be posting about the incredible food we cook up (Dan is an aspiring cook),
music that we're listening to, sources from which we draw inspiration, and whatever else
is filling our lives with decadence.