Sunday, October 16, 2011

Ribs

A couple of months ago, my friend S brought ribs to a cottage. She had marinated them in a smoked hickoey sauce blended with sriracha. Yes, that red sauce that you'll always find on the table when you go for pho. nom nom nom. In my attempts to eat more red meat, ribs got in the way. It's still meat, it's got to have iron in it, right? Check out this saucy goodness:

There was some cheesy bread to go along with it, good for soaking up that sauce.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Thanksgiving!

This year, for the first time, Thanksgiving dinner was at my place. I invited a few people, and that number turned to 10. If you've been to my apartment, I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, Where did you fit all of those bodies?! Did you have enough dishes?!

The bodies fit fine, I opened my front door to get some air circulation seeing as it was 26 degrees outside, resulting in a possible oven in my apartment. I did not have enough dishes, I borrowed some bowls from The Girl Next Door J, and had some paper plates.

Now, on to the fun part...The food!

My mum did that turkey at hers, and I did a pork roast as I was concerned we wouldn't have enough meat.

I included a Soupita basic, butternut squash soup, here are the main ingredients, ready to be roasted:


After that photo was taken, it was a whirlwind three hours of cooking where no photos were taken, and resulted in this:

Family and friends digging in to goodness! I quickly grabbed my camera to document the dishes before it was devoured. First up, stuffing. I love how every holiday has a discussion about what kind of stuffing you do. I do bread stuffing. Sliced bread stuffing. That's right. Delicious! You can see the edge of the mashed potatoes that didn't get it's own shot:

Here is my momma carving up the bird:


My pork roast in the background. It was my first time doing a pork roast, thank you Canadian Living for your guidance! I sliced up some cortland apples, and fried them in butter and maple syrup to go with the pork, nom nom nom:

There was a suggestion for glazed carrots as a side, I sliced a few carrots up, put them in a cup of water with 2 tbsps of butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar and cooked until the sauce reduced. Yum!:

For me, this was the star of the show, sweet potatoes with a pecan topping, also from Canadian Living. The sweet potatoes were so light and fluffy, and the topping was crunchy and delicious:

The butternut squash soup in bowls, ready to be eaten, despite the heat:

And finally, all of the lovlies that came over to share Thanksgiving, my irngutaqs, D and B:

Cousin MR, don't worry Tulugaq and L, she's being fed!

My mum and Ajakuluk:

Little M, so cute, as she was leaving later on she said "Bye Oslo!", he's clearly her favourite!

Another irngutaq who is now my TA at Inuktitut, and friends Sarah and Beth. If they were to have a baby, I would be it.

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm off for round two of food coma weekend!

Monday, October 3, 2011

Monday, 7:30pm

You just got home from teaching yoga after a day at the office. As your mum was driving you home through the cold and rainy streets, you remembered that you have frozen ravioli that you could make for a quick dinner. *woo hoo* When you get in, you put on some water to boil, and then realize: *snap* you don't have any sauce. While it could be handy to turn off the water and make a quick sandwich, you text someone and they remind you that you can probably whip something up. That would be much more satisfying.

So you take out a pan and put it on medium heat. While it's heating up, you chop up two cloves of garlic and two tomatoes. Then, after putting some olive oil into the heated pan, you add the garlic and let it get all beautiful and aromatic like garlic does. Garlic is so talented. Then you add the chopped tomatoes and some salt. Wait a second, there are some mini peppers in the freezer. You grab a mini yellow pepper and slice half, dice the other half. After tossing in the diced pepper, you feed the slices to your dog so that he's not staring at you longingly while you cook. Dang those puppy dog eyes.

While your sauce is simmering, you add some oregano. Then remember you have an open can of crushed tomatoes in the fridge, not to mention ricotta cheese and fresh basil. These sound like they could go splendidly together and you add a couple of spoonfuls of each. Finally, you let it all simmer together while you drain your ravioli:

*simmer* * simmer* *simmer*

Ta-Da!:



Probably one of the better sauces that you've put together in less than 20 minutes. Rich, flavourful, and perfect on that frozen ravioli that called to your tummy on the way home. Not bad for a Monday evening.




Ingredient summary:


2 cloves garlic

2 tomatoes

olive oil

salt to taste

oregano to taste (in this kitchen that's quite a bit)

2 tbsps canned crushed tomatoes

2 tbsps ricotta

some fresh chopped basil