These brownies will remain super moist for days – if in fact they last that long at all. Not likely.

Chocolate & Beet Brownies

10 0z (1 1/4 cup) chocolate

1 cup butter

4 eggs

2 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla

pinch salt

1/2 cup chopped red beets

Boil beet under very tender (or use canned if you prefer). Place beet in food processer and pulse until small chunks (do not puree). Reserve.

In a double boiler or microwave, melt chocolate and butter together. In a mixing bowl mix together brown sugar and eggs. Blend in flour, baking powder and salt.  Fold in  chocolate, vanilla and beets until well incorporated. Lightly grease a 9×13 pan. Bake at 350° for approx. 35 minutes or until brownie is just firm.

Beets and chocolate. Who knew they go so well together.

Butternut Squash Muffins

2 1/2 cups flour (white, white or mixed)

1 cup + 1 tbsp  brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 cup butternut sqush (or mixed squash & banana)

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/3 cup butter, melted

 1 tsp +  1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp + 1 tsp vanilla

Start by peeling and cutting up about a cup or squsah. Add squash to a small pot, cover with water, then add 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp cinnamon. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer until squash is tender. Drain water and mash squash (you can leave it a little chunky).

In a mixing bowl add flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt & baking powder and mix well. Add eggs.  In a seperate bowl mix together squash, milk and vanilla. Add to dry ingredients and stir. Mix in melted butter until well incorporated. Portion into 12 lined or silicone muffin cups. Bake at 400° for 23 minutes.

Before getting into details of the meal, it’s worth noting that the Whalesbone is OceanWise certified, meaning that all or most of their seafood offerings are sustainable.

Now one of the advantages of going out with a group of food people is the restaurant kitchen tends to throw in a few extras and items that you won’t find on their regular menu. To start we had a platter of there house pork terrine and house char gravlax. Both were tasty. The pork with thick slices of bacon and the char with a subtle cure. A cheese platter came to the table as well, but I’m not sure of what those 3 cheeses were – still trying to figure out my local cheeses. Condiments ranged from grainy mustard and cream with the meat/fish to apple butter and a granola type mix with the cheese (a mix of seeds, nuts and fruit – it was good and a nice change from the regular spiced or candied nuts). Next came a platter of oysters. Actually they went so fast that another platter was ordered. I’m not a huge oyster fan, but tonight they were tasty. West Coasters I believe. I’m normally not a “add sauce to my oyster” kind of guy either, but with the tray of condiments came a little bottle of scotch. Scotch is actually very tasty on an oyster – makes the finish very smooth and not so briny. Lastly came a big bowl of smoked oyster dip with crunchy crostinis. The dip was neither smoky or oystery, but tasty none the less.

So now that we made it through several rounds of pre-appetizers,time to dip into the menu. The Whalesbone being a seafood restaurant, expect just that, with a couple seasonal meat choices thrown in. For my appetizer I chose the clam chowder (because I do love a clam chowder). This one was thick with heavy cream, potato and clam, topped of with a slice of white fish and a couple fritters. A tasty, rich chowder. Would like to have the fritters on the side, but that’s just me. At $12 it’s not a cheap bowl of soup, and that’s also the least expensive appetizer choice (it goes up to about $20 for the lobster roll).

For my main I went for the Walleye. Being on the West Coast for so many years, I’ve missed lake fish, so I had to give it a go. Nicely seared – still moist. Accompanied by a slab of fried polenta, prosciutto, turnips, sunchokes and a few other baby vegetables, with a spoonful of white veal sauce. Again I enjoyed it. A touch small for the $30 price tag, but well put together.

The dessert menu was skipped as a platter of birthday squares came to the table – to let the gorging continue.

All in all, good dinner, good company. I’d definitely come back to The Whalesbone again.

These are both tartlets made from puff pastry. Puff pastry can be pretty tricky to make yourself, so don’t be afraid to keep some from your grocer’s freezer section in your freezer. It’s great to have on hand for quick appetizers or desserts. Tip: puff pastry likes to be cooked in a hot oven, 400°+. It’s the quick steam created between the layers of butter that give it it’s rise.

Carmelized Onion & Mushroom Tarte -  makes 4

1 medium yellow onion

1 clove garlic

3 button mushrooms

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp fresh thyme

puff pastry cut into roughly 2″squares

s & p to taste

Cut puff pastry into roughly 2″ squares (or whatever shape you like). Bake in a 400°+ oven for 6-8 minutes or until lightly golden.

Start onions by slicing into thin strips. Mince garlic. Heat pan to medium high. Add 1 tbsp oil.

Add sliced onions and garlic to hot pan with a pinch or s & p. Resist the temptation to stir or flip them!! Wait until the onions on the bottom start to caramelize before moving them around. Once the caramelization process has started, turn heat to low. Now you can give onions a stir every few minutes as needed. Once all onions have reached a deep, rich colour, add thyme and remove from heat.

Next up mushrooms. Same deal. Slice. Hot pan with oil. S & p. Don’t touch until they start to brown. Heat down to finish.

Assembly: place a spoonful of onions on puff pastry piece. Top with mushrooms.

If you want to get a bit fancier, add some cheese to the top, goat or Gruyere, and some toasted hazelnuts. Add a side of greens for a great first course.

Now for the sweet…

Carmamelized Apple & Pear Tarte

2 apples

2 pears

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp butter

pinch salt

puff pastry – cut approx 4×10″

Cut puff pastry into approx 4×10″ piece (go ahead and make smaller ones if you like).  Bake in a 400°+ oven for 6-8 minutes or until lighly golden.

Peel and core apples and pears. Cut into 1/4, then each piece again into 1/4.

Add all slices into large pan with sugar, butter and cinnamon. Cook over medium heat until lightly caramelized, maybe 10 minutes on medium-low heat.

Once apple and pears are cooked, line alternatley on puff pastry. Slide back into the oven for a couple minutes. This is great served with vanilla bean ice cream.

The first recipe is actually something I had been planning to make the when I had received the box and found many of the ingredients inside – perfect.

Beef Stew

This is a fairly standard stew recipe. Nothing too crazy. You can use regular stewing meat if you like, which most likely comes from the shoulder, but for the best stew, use meat from the lower leg – calve & shin. Ask your butcher for it.

2 lbs cubed beef – roughly 1″ cubes

1 medium onion – lg dice

2 stalks celery – 1/2″ pieces

2 large carrots – 1/2″ pieces

4-6 cloves garlic – chopped

6-8 mushrooms – cut into 1/4

1 cup red wine

6 cups roasted chicken stock (or beef)

1/4 – 1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup flour

1 tsp ea rosemary, sage, thyme – fresh if possible

s & p

In a large bowl mix cubed beef with a good pinch of salt & pepper and toss with flour until meat is well covered. On medium heat, warm a bit of oil in a saute pan, add pieces of beef to pan with out crowding and brown well on all sides – the Maillard Reaction if you like. Remove pieces into a pot when browned. Repeat until all the meat has been browned. Add red wine to pan and scape of any bits stuck to the bottom. Add to beef. Here, I like to cook my onion, garlic, carrot, celery and mushrooms until it starts to brown a little, but you could just toss it all in the pot if you like. Add a bit more salt and pepper, the herbs and cover with chicken (or beef stock).

Bring this liquid up to a boil, then down to a low simmer for about 3 hours. As with any braised dish, this gets better over the next couple days – if it lasts that long.

Served with garlic mashed potatoes or a soft polenta.

Beef stew is the kind of dish that satisfies the soul and doesn’t need to be fussy. It really only needs to be cooked long enough. Other than that, you can’t go wrong.

More recipes to come!

Though we are quite well off here in Canada, there are many places, especially in the downtown sections of cities, where food deserts do occur. A food desert if you haven’t heard is a section of the city (usually lower income) where markets and grocery stores move out, leaving residents with few options to purchase fresh, healthy food.  Maybe we can dive into the issue of food deserts another time. To help alleviate this fresh food issue, groups such as the Good Food Box Ottawa have been created to provide fresh, sometimes even local, produce buying opportunities at a very reasonable cost.

A little about the Good Food Box in their own words: “The Ottawa Good Food Box is a non-profit community-based initiative bringing neighbours together to buy a variety of delicious and nutritious fresh fruits and vegetables at wholesale prices. It works like a large buying club with centralized buying and coordination. Our goal is to purchase food that is in season and is grown close to home as possible. The Good Food Box concept is based on a very successful program developed by Food Share Toronto’s Field to Table Program that started in 1994 with only 40 boxes. Field to Table now delivers approximately 4000 boxes per month in the Toronto Area. Many communities from coast to coast have developed their own version of the Good Food Box, responding to local needs and circumstances. The Ottawa Good Food Box was developed in 1996 by a group of Community Developers and Community Nutritionists as a way of reaching out to those in the community who were not accessing adequate fresh fruits and vegetables.”

Here in Ottawa, the Good Food Box program is sponsored by the Centretown Community Health Centre (420 Cooper St.), as well as the City of Ottawa and the Community Foundation of Ottawa. Boxes are available at around 20 sites across the city for pick up, and must be ordered in advance. There are several price options to choose from, $10, $15, $20 boxes all contain a base selection – onions, carrots, apples, bananas, lettuce as well as potatoes every other month. Seasonal items and additional produce is added based on the box size (price). As well there are $5 bags of fruit available usually containing apples, oranges, bananas and pears. Also during the growing season, an organic option is available for $25 for a medium sized box. Purchasing a box is open to everyone – this isn’t a Food Bank type service. The produce for the boxes are purchased at wholesale prices and are resold at those same prices, ie a $10 box has at least $10 of wholesale produce, sometimes even as much as $20. The program doesn’t make a profit, but relies on volunteers and grants to help keeps costs low.

I was asked recently, as someone who both works in the food industry and who helps promote food issues, to take a basket and give my thoughts and maybe even come up with a recipe or two with the contents. I was offered a $15 box (for which I donated $15) and here is what I found inside for this month:

• ·         5 apples
• ·         4 pears
• ·         2 oranges
• ·         6 bananas
• ·         2 lb bag of yellow onions
• ·         2 lb bag of carrots
• ·         2 green peppers
• ·         ½ lb button mushrooms
• ·         Large head of celery
• ·         Green cabbage
• ·         Romaine lettuce
• ·         Small bag of fresh cranberries
• ·         Small pumpkin

This is a pretty good amount of produce for $15. Everything here is fresh. These aren’t grocery store discards. There is definitely enough of the basics, as well as a few items to keep it interesting. Eating as much of this in its raw state would deliver the most amount of nutrition, but a few items lend themselves nicely to being cooked. Over the next couple days, I’ll post a couple recipes about what I’ve come up with using the contents of this Good Food Box.

Chicken enchiladas are something that my family eats fairly often and this one I use is based on Emeril Lagasse’s chicken enchilada recipe, but feel free to sub in all that turkey this week. In my house its made in the casserole style – easier to put together and tastes the same.

Turkey (or chicken) Enchilada Casserole

2-3 cups shredded turkey meat – white and dark

1 medium onion – sliced

1 each red & green pepper – sliced

2 cloves garlic – minced

1 lg (796 mL) can tomatoes – you can use puree or mash up a can of whole or diced tomatoes

3 lg tbsp chili powder

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp cumin

2-3 cups grated cheese – cheddar, mozzerella, jack

12 small corn tortillas

salt & pepper to taste

Warm a large skillet with 1 tbsp oil. Add onions and peppers with a little salt and pepper and cook until softened. Reserve.

In a pot add tomatoes, chili powder, garlic, oregano, cumin and salt & pepper to taste. Bring to the boil, turn down heat and simmer for 10 minutes until flavours mingle. Reserve.

In a 9×13 pan, layer 6 corn tortillas to cover bottom. Next, cover tortillas with turkey meat. Spoon half tomato mixture over meat, then add onions and peppers. Cover with remaining corn tortillas. Spoon remaining tomato mixture over tortillas and sprinkle on cheese.

Bake at 375° for 20-30 minutes or until cheese is nice and melted, and the middle is hot.

Garnish with sour cream, green onions and a splash of your favourite hot sauce. Brown rice is a great side for this dish.

I hope this gives you another dish in your repitoire of “dishes to make from holiday leftovers”.

First off, the weather was fantastic. Warm and sunny – which is always key for an outdoor event. The process is simple: grab a plate and get in line. The farmers and chefs will hook you up from there. Having grabbed a plate, I walked over to the first booth which already had a good sized line, so I decided to check it out. Atelier. Two reasons why there was a line: 1. the quality of the food/restaurant/chef. 2. it was a composed plate of about 12 items, so it took a minute to make each plate. I wish I could remember every thing on this artistically composed plate, but I can not. They should have had a small sign. I’m sure they had to repeat the list a couple hundred times.

The centrepiece of this plate was the Miskin Meadows Farm  pork belly (cooked sous vide for 36 hours), then pan fried to a crisp. Crispy skin, apple at least 2-3 ways. Very tasty and it all worked together – which is saying a lot since there were so many tastes on the plate.

Another big line-up and a tasty sample was the mini burger (or slider) from Allium who was teamed up with Willowpond Acres Farm.

A nice little burger (ground chuck I’m guessing) topped with braised brisket, heirloom lettuce & tomatoes, corn “salsa” with a help-yourself side of homemade chips.

It would be great if I could give you a run down of all the chefs/producers there, but that would get very lengthy. They all did a very nice job.  Savvy Company had wines by the glass, Beau’s had beer on tap (sooo nice on a hot day) and Joël’s Coffee had, well, coffee. All great additions to the day.

For some unfortunate reason, I did miss the majority of the dessert table. I know, how did I let that happen, but I did have a few pieces from this watermelon table. Wow. Some of the best watermelon I’ve had in a long time – and they have seeds! Felicity was my favourite. Like candy.

One of the last bites I had before I had to head outwas from the Branch restaurant – and I wish I had more room in my stomach for it and another. So simple, yet so good. These potatoes were cooked in beef fat, then topped with a very garlicy aioli and Himalayan pink salt. Can I eat these every day?

Feast of Fields 2011 was a great welcoming to this city and I look forward to next year’s event and checking out more great places to eat in Ottawa and surrounding areas – especially those who gave their talents to this event – and to those who farm organically in this region. Well done.

In a restaurant kitchen, I would have several different stocks available at any given time – chicken, fish, demi glace at the least and maybe a couple others as well depending on the menu: duck, seafood, etc. Although many different stocks are useful at the fine dining level, a well made chicken stock can take care of all you normal day to day needs. The one thing I do to change the stock, depending on the need, is to make the stock darker or lighter: lighter for fish dishes or light soups, darker (roasting the bones and the vegetables) for stronger meat dishes.

Here’s how to make a tasty chicken stock of your own – it’s best with a fresh chicken carcass, but any bones will do (freeze them and use them as you need). If you don’t usually buy whole chickens, save the bones from the backs or the legs. This is also not a “recipe” but a guideline. Feel free to add more less 0f any items.

bones from one chicken carcass or equivalent

2 carrots – roughly cut into a few pieces

1-2 stalks celery – roughly cut into several pieces

2-3 cloves garlic

6-8 parsley stems (I save them in the freezer)

sprig or thyme or oregano (or both)

For a light stock, add everything to a stock pot and cover with cold water. For a dark stock, roast the bones, carrots, onions and celery in a hot oven until they take on colour. Add these to your stock pot, then add the rest of your ingredients covering them with cold water.

* Note: always use cold water to start a stock. Hot water brings more fat and impurities out of the bones.

Bring your stock to a boil. Once it comes to the boil, turn it down to a simmer, cooking for about an hour. Turn the heat off and continue to steep for another 30 minutes. Now, you can strain out the liquid through a mesh or colander, pushing on the bones gently to coax out all of the liquid. Refrigerate until cold. The fat with come to the top and you can just lift it out. Store in an airtight container or freeze for future use (pour into ice cube trays to make portions that can be used anytime).

Making stock for yourself is a much healthier option than canned, packaged or powdered stocks, which may contain a lot of sodium. It is also very satisfying to the soul to have the smell of chicken stock simmering on a cool fall afternoon. If you never have, give it a try, you’ll be glad you did.

mason jars are a great way to store your stock