Culinary Delights: juni 2009

dinsdag 16 juni 2009

TWD: Honey Peach Ice Cream

This weeks recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie was choosen by Tommi of Brown Interior, the recipe can be found here.

I had never made ice cream before and was excited to try this, only one problem: I don't own an ice cream maker and neither does my friend Lisa that I'm visiting at the moment. But then I remembered something: didn't the TWD-ers make an ice cream shortly before I became a part of their wonderful group? I went looking and found out that they did: Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream in August 2008 and there was a post on making ice cream without an ice cream maker containing two links. After checking out both of them I decided to use David Lebovitz's method, go here for his method.

Back to Dorie's recipe: everything went great untill I had to thicken the custard: I whisked and whisked and whisked, for about 45 minutes, but it only got a little bit thicker. The recipe didn't state how thick the custard had to be so I eventually just gave in and decided this was it.

Making the actual ice cream was quite easy: you just have to stay around the house for a couple of hours. I paired the ice cream with last weeks parisian apple tartlets and served them while they were still warm. The combination of the ice cream with the tartlets was amazing. The only thing I would change next time is the chuncks of frozen peach: I didn't really care for those. I'd puree all the peaches instead and I'd also use a bit more fruit as the flavour of the honey stood out quite a bit more than the peaches. I loved how easy it was to make ice cream, so you'll be seeing more ice cream here!! Check out what my fellow TWD-ers thought of the Honey Peach Ice Cream here.

donderdag 11 juni 2009

Salmon Skewers with Maple-Mustard Glaze and Salad with Lisa's Delicious Salad Dressing

My first three days in Canada passed by so fast, so here's a short impression for y'all before we get to the good part: the recipes!!

Tuesday June 9th: this was a lazy day, all about planning my visit and trying out Lisa's new hot tub

Kim and Lisa in the hot tub!

Wednesday June 10th: Lisa had to finish some work so I went shopping and afterwards we met Andrea and her daughter Tea at a BBQ.

Andrea and Tea at the BBQ

Thursday 11th: today started with a visit to St. Jacobs Farmers Market, where I bought some mango and cherry fruitbread, blueberries (soooo much cheaper than home), apple fritters, a cute sterling silver ring and some maple syrup ofcourse.

Marie from A Year at Oak Cottage advised us to visit Anna Mae's Bakery & Restaurant in Millbank and we were happy to oblige: we had a lovely meal!

I really enjoyed my Grilled Chicken Breast with a Cheesebun, Corn and French Fries.

The fries were coated in something that looked like breadcrumbs and tasted delish: a simple, good and wholesome meal.

We then took a Lemon Meringue Pie with us to have coffee at Deb's place where we shared half of the pie.

Back to St. Jacobs to do some more shopping, I ended up with some kitchen utensils, some chocolates (duh....) and fell in love with both an angel ring and a necklace with three hearts dangling on it, one heart says live, one says love and the third says laugh. Soooo cute.

We had some salmon skewers laying around in the freezer, I wizzed up this lovely glaze from Canadian Living, we changed the recipe a bit 'cause we didn't have a cedar plank laying around, and Lisa grilled the salmon, some veggies and threm together a lovely salad with dressing. Everthing was soooooo yummy!!!

Salmon Skewers with Maple-Mustard Glaze

4 salmon skewers (ready bought President's Choice, 320 gram)

1/8 cup maple syrup

1 tbsp grainy Dijon mustard (we used regular non-grainy Dijon mustard)

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

In a small bowl whisk together maple syrup, mustard, salt and pepper; brush half over salmon skewers. Place skewers on grill over medium-high heat; close lid and cook, brushing once with remaining maple mixture until salmon is done, about 10 minutes.

Lisa's Delicious Salad Dressing

1 garlic clove

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 tbsp honey

Finely dice the garlic, put in small bowl together with the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and honey and whisk together. Pour over salad and enjoy!

Disneyland Paris - day three: June 1st and Pralines de Paris - day four: June 2nd

Day three of Disneyland Paris was spent at Walt Disney's Studios

Dad, Harm, Lotte and mom

Mom, Lotte, Harm and dad

Mom at Cafe Mickey

Dad at Cafe Mickey

Pinocchio's Pasta: a piece of garlic bread with spaghetti, roasted tomatoes, artichoke hearts and a creamy garlicsauce

A close-up of Pinocchio's Pasta

After lunch at Cafe Mickey my mom and I said our goodbyes to dad, Harm and Lotte as they were heading back home. We checked in at our hotel for that night and ate at a tiny Italian restaurant in Val d'Europe shopping centre. Unfortunately the dessert (an at the time delicious tiramisu) didn't agree with me and I felt horrible the next day. We did go to Paris and visited one chocolatier where we bought some chocolates. After walking around a bit more I felt worse and we decided to go back to the hotel and drive back home.

A few days later I actually felt well enough to try the chocolates I had bought at Pierre Marcolini, at 3 rue Scribe in Paris. The lady in the shop was super friendly and helped us pick out our favourite flavours. The ones I liked the best were:

Mangue: a milk chocolate cream combined with a Brazilian mango jam

But I must admit that my absolute favourite was the Palet Or Lait! Not only does it look amazing, decorated with the gold flakes, but it also tastes heavenly: a smooth milk ganache combined with a caramel coulis, all intensely vanilla-flavoured.

So if you're ever in Paris, be sure to fit in a visit to one of Pierre Marcolini's stores and pick up some yummy chocolates! By the way, he also has stores in Belgium (Bruxelles, Antwerp, Knokke and Liege), UK (London), USA (New York), Kuwait and Japan (Ota-kuTokyo, Tokyo and Nagoya), check out the adresses here. Pierre Marcolini had an amazing site in French, English and Dutch that features all his products: this is hardcore chocolate porn!!