Sunday, May 24, 2009

Saturday, May 23 - EAT Vancouver & BBQ

I was on my own for breakfast. D went for a motorbike ride up the coast with a couple of guys from my ultimate team. Bike riders are so funny. They find out that they ride and then become great friends.

I snoozed in and made an Egg White Quesadilla

3 eggs, separated
2 whole wheat tortillas
2 oz cheddar or how much you want

Separate the eggs and cover the yolks and keep in the fridge. Put a non stick pan on low heat. Melt a pat of butter and a dash of olive oil. Wait a minute for it to come back to temperature. Pour in the eggs. Swirl the pan so that the pan is covered. Move the egg around as it cooks so more of the gooey bits hit the pan. When it looks more or less done and less transparent looking, shimmy your spatula under and lift, you can use your fingers if you're careful and flip over. Only for 10 s on the other side. You just want it to set. I don't like crispy egg whites.

On a plate, have one of the tortillas out. Put the egg out onto the tortilla and then slide the tortilla on to the pan. Top with slices of the cheddar and cover with the other tortilla. If you don't want that much tortilla, use just one and fold. When the cheese starts to melt, flip until toasty.

I went to EAT Vancouver for the afternoon. It was brilliant. One of the best food fairs I've been to in a long time. I still don't approve of having to charge us entrance and then in addition having us have to buy tickets to have food samples. A few years ago, the event was in Canada Place so there was no entrance charge. I was good with that. All the same, there were actually quite alot of free samples from all the booths. I did buy some tickets to have some of the wine samples and one mango lassi.

I sat and watched a few of the Master Chef showdowns and Ricardo make a YUMMY looking sable fish (aka black cod) in a Sun-dried Tomato Pesto. He was hilarious. I think the recipe is in his book but this is how I remember he made it.

Sable Fish in Sun Dried Tomato and Pumpkin Seed Pesto

(the proportions are good but the amount will very depending on how much fish you cook)
2 150 - 200g filets per person
1/2 c oil cured sun dried tomato
1/2 c raw, unsalted pumpkin seeds
1-2T capers
olive oil
salt and pepper

On a cutting board mince the tomatoes. Add the pumpkin seeds on top and continue to chop. Add the capers and chop. You can do this in a food processor if you like. Just pulse though, don't puree. Drizzle in oil until you get a paste.

Add some olive oil and a pat of butter into a non stick pan. Sear the halibut on one side for 3-4 minutes. The trick he said was to do most of the cooking on the first side. The other side after the turn will be a minute at most. The first side is the presentation side.

Serve with the pesto pressed onto the presentation side with your choice of vegetable or rice.

We went to my friend E's for a birthday barbeque. We brough some strawberries, kettle chips and Tofurky Kielbasa dogs with mini panini loaves for the buns. Your typical BBQ fayre. The Kielbasa dogs were pretty good. Funny thing was that someone else brought the exact same dogs. Yay Vancouver vegetarians. On the side, someone had brought some homemade potato salad. It was really nice. One of the most loathed traditions of potluck BBQ's is the storebought potato salad, all mayo goopiness and mushy potatoes. This one was nicely cooked potatoes, with pickles, shredded carrots and mayo. It was yummmmoo! I went for a second dog but our friend P had an extra Salmon burger he bought from Costco. I, of course opted for it. There was someone right there wanting my cooked Tofurky dog :-). The salmon burger was pretty good. A bit dry so I had to add some mayo and mustard.

We brought a nice Spanish white to go with.

Eliana and Pat's birthday ... Kielbasa Dogs and Salmon Burger. Nice potato salad and bean salad.

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