Pineapple Curry

I watched Jamie Oliver make this recipe, and quickly scratched down the approximate ingredients (and had to ask my sister-in-law to confirm some of them) and the steps to make this very flavourful and interesting curry. The curry leaves are quite wonderful, you can find them in any good Indian supermarket, they smell like curry and impart an excellent flavour to any curry dish. The plantain in this dish is supposed to mimic chicken, so as to keep it a vegetarian dish; look for ripe plantains, they are much starchier than bananas (bananas will not work in this dish, as they will turn to mush). I also used chipotle chili powder, you can use a less hot chili powder if you wish, but I like it spicy. Lastly, the black mustard seeds are interesting too; when they cook in the hot oil, they begin to pop, and the smell of popped corn emerges; adding the curry leaves will stop them from popping.

Pineapple Curry
Adapted from a recipe by Jamie Oliver
2 Tbsp sunflower oil
2 Tbsp black mustard seeds
Handful fresh curry leaves
3 cardomom seeds
thumb-sized piece of ginger, slivered
2 tsp cumin seeds, crushed in mortar/pestle
1 tsp chipotle chili powder
2 tsp tumeric
2 medium pineapples, cored and diced into bite-sized chunks
2 plantains, sliced thickly at angle
1 can coconut milk

Heat oil on medium heat; add black mustard seeds and let cook until they begin to pop. Immediately add the curry leaves. Fry the curry leaves for a moment.

Add the ginger and fry for a minute or two, then add each of the spices in succession, frying for a moment.

Add pineapple chunks and plantain, stir until they are covered with the herb-ginger mixture, and cook for a short while.

Add coconut milk and continue to cook for approximately 8 minutes.

Breakfast Cookies

The concept of eating cookies for breakfast is probably as good as eating sugared cereal, unless the cookie has healthy ingredients (well, maybe not even then). This recipe was originally designed to duplicate the Baker's Breakfast Cookie popular in the United States, I don't believe we get it up here in Canada. I made some changes, substituting hazelnuts (of course) for the walnuts in the original recipe, currants for raisins, omitting 1-1/2 tsp of cinnamon, and doubling the vanilla. I also added salba seed, also known as white chia, the latest ancient grain health craze, that I've been experimenting with recently. I don't know if this is a duplicate of the commercial product any more, I don't have anything to compare to. I do know that they are quite tasty, with a cakey texture, and, I think, you could eat them any time of the day.

Breakfast Cookies
2 cups demerara sugar
2-1/2 cups rolled oats
2 Tbsp salba seed
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup canola/sunflower oil
1/2 cup prune puree
2 tablespoons water
5 egg whites
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup currants
1/4 cup chopped hazelnuts
1/3 cup chopped dried apricots

Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, stir together the sugar, oats, salba seed, flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center and pour in the oil, prune puree, water, egg whites and vanilla. Mix until well blended. Stir in the currants, hazelnuts and apricots. Roll into golf ball sized balls. Place cookies 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets. Wet your hands and flatten the cookies to 1/2" tall.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.

Lindt Creation Chili

This new chocolate bar from Lindt, the second of three in this series (the third is orange), features a smooth truffle centre, with a cherry coulis accented with a hint of spicy chili. The dark chocolate is the famous smooth dark chocolate that Lindt is famous for, with 70% cacao content. The ingredient listing, unlike other chocolate bars from Lindt, is quite long, cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, glucose syrup, milk ingredients, almonds, cherry, pectin, concentrated cherry juice, hazelnuts, concentrated lemon juice, natural bourbon vanilla bean, soya lecithin, artificial flavour, carrot, grape, chokeberry and chili extract.

I must say I'm not a fan of these either. These too, felt like I was chewing marshmallow. The chili was sweet, not spicy at all (hint is more than correct, and, like most foods offered that are spicy, is not at all like you would spice them at home), which would have done wonders to the flavour; the chili, nor the cherry (I had to read the packaging later to realize that it was cherry flavoured), do not add anything to the smooth dark chocolate, it would have been better without them.

Lindt Creation Caramel

This new chocolate bar from Lindt, the first of three in this series (the third is orange), features a smooth truffle centre, with a creamy caramel coulis. The dark chocolate is the famous smooth dark chocolate that Lindt is famous for, with 70% cacao content. The ingredient listing, unlike other chocolate bars from Lindt, is quite long, cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa powder, glucose syrup, lactose, invert sugar, sorbitol, soya lecithin, natural bourbon vanilla beans, barley malt extract, sorbic acid, natural and artificial flavours.

I must say I'm not a fan of these. Chewing them, I couldn't help but feel like I was chewing marshmallow. The caramel does not add anything to the smooth dark chocolate, it would have been better without it. Too, in reading the ingredient listing, I would not have chosen this bar, mostly for a lot of the ingredients, too much sugar.

Ethiquable Dark Chocolate with Cocoa Nibs

I have written about Fair Trade products before (paying local farmers fair prices, and making their farming sustainable - see Max Havelaar for International Standards of Fair Trade), this dark chocolate bar with cacao nibs by Ethiquable is made from Fair Trade cacao from the Dominican Republic. With 60% cacao content, it's ingredient listing is good, cocoa paste, cane sugar (also a Fair Trade product), cocoa bean nibs, cocoa butter, soya lecithin and artificial vanilla.

I first thought that this chocolate was off, as it has an earthy taste to it when I first bit into a square. Overall, it's quite tasty, the cocoa nibs enhance the chocolatey-ness.

Restaurant Review - Chi's Congee & Noodle House

Around the corner from the Lion City restaurant that I reviewed earlier, in the same mall (1177 Central Parkway West, Unit 66), is Chi's Congee and Noodle House. Sort of non-descript on the outside, we chose this restaurant over another, based on the number of people in the restaurant. I know, perhaps not a great indicator, but there were certainly not only a larger number of people, but a much larger number of tables full in this restaurant. We elected to take out what we ordered. As the name of the restaurant might indicate to you, this restaurant features congee, the Chinese dish made with rice that can only be described as rice soup, at least by me. Slightly chunky and creamy, congee is easy on the digestion, and its flavour comes from the combination of ingredients, often meat or seafood or egg, or vegetables. Deep fried dough fritters goes well with congee, though we did not order any. We chose the sliced fish congee, not noticing the sweet corn and fish Super Bowl (which has little to do with the Football season-ending championship game) on the menu, also we ordered Deep Fried Wonton (with shrimp) and Fried Stuffed Bean Curd. All of these were fairly tasty, and we came back again to order some more another day, we'll keep it in mind for a good, and closer, place to buy congee.

Flagrants Desirs Chocolate Noir

This dark chocolate with 70% cacoa content from Flagrants Desirs tastes pretty good, I've tried a couple of their products, of the six in their chocolate bar line, they also have Dark Pear, Dark Mint, Extra Dark 85%, Dark with Cocoa Nibs and Dark Orange. The ingredient listing looks good, just cocoa paste, sugar, cocoa butter, low fat cocoa butter (low fat?!), canola lecithin and artificial flavour.

The bar is quite chocolatey, melts well and tastes good. Not my favourite, but I would eat this again.

Sticky Fingers Bakeries Wild Blueberry Scones

I had never heard of the online bakery Sticky Fingers Bakery, but given that it's headquartered in Spokane, Washington, you'll forgive my ignorance. Perusing their website, I see they make a variety of packaged baking mixes, including brownies, breads, muffins, and what this one is, scones. They also make jams. Too, their mixes are made from all-natural ingredients, with no artificial anything, and no trans fats.

The variety I selected was their Wild Blueberry Scones; as you might know, I love wild blueberries.

They are easy to make, just add water (well, I added rice milk), stir with a fork, and divide into 12 scones.

Then bake for 12-15 minutes and, well, enjoy. Quite tasty.

Santa Cruz Organic Lemon Lime

This carbonated lemon and lime juice is a step above the sugared lemonades that you can buy in stores; it's organic, it's got cane sugar as it's main sugar source, and it doesn't have citric acid to make it lemony, rather, it uses real juice. This is pleasant tasting, rather good, but far more expensive than its commercial competition.

Xi Yue Pot

I was over at my brother-in-law's the other day, and he had a neat pot for making tea. I was intrigued, as I'm always on the lookout for better ways of making tea. The problem with loose tea, while it produces a superior flavour, the tea leaves, whatever is loose, often tends to float on the surface and interferes with the enjoyment of the drink, you're always spitting out something. With green tea, you can chew on the leaves, many people do, often to get the last of the goodness out. He gladly demonstrated the teapot, and I was further intrigued. I asked him where he had got it, and he told me that he had got it from a friend, who had bought it in China.

The other day I was in this Chinese supermarket, and I was finally able to locate one. I bought it, got it home, and had to bring it back to exchange, as it was broken (and learned a lesson about Chinese business people, they were suspicious that I had broken it and was lying that it was broken when I bought it - I guess I looked honest enough that they allowed me to exchange it).

The Xi Yue pot has three distinct parts to it, an outer glass pot, where the steeped tea goes once it is ready; and inner plastic pot, with fine screen and water-stop ball, where the tea steeps; and a plastic lid, to cover the tea while it is steeping.

Here is the inner pot, without the lid, with some green tea, waiting for the hot water.

Here is the steeping tea in the inner pot.

When the tea is ready, there is a water-release button, that, when pressed, lifts the water-stop ball (a ball bearing), releasing the tea into the outer pot, the screen filtering the tea leaves.

Here is the tea in the outer pot.

The tea pot works great, I find, you can add more hot water to the inner pot, to steep the tea a second, or third, time, but it makes only a small amount of tea, enough for half a mug of tea. Fine for one person, I guess, but for larger number of people, I would say that you need a much bigger one. I wonder if they do.