so picnic season is officially open...

we kicked it off on sunday with pétanque and pastis and pistachios and other p-related things. pashing? pain? those pistachio shells totally screwed my thumbnail.

anyways, my new window-ledge basil surplus afforded us some pesto, ricotta and roasted tomato calzones for the occasion (gone too quick to photograph) and we whipped up a fine green storm of a cake: zucchini and pistachio with creamy lime icing.

yay summer. check out the rest of the photos here.

all about fish

lordy me it's difficult to feel good about eating fish this far inland, but it's just too delicious to forego. one of these days i'm going to do a little research and find out where the fancy karstadt foodstore actually gets its fish from so i can try to buy a bit more carefully. in the meantime (ha) i've been enjoying some lovely things of late:

1. pig + fish + tomato = awesome. grilled squid and chorizo salad with roasted tomatoes and rucola.

2. charred salmon steaks with spicy tomato and cinnamon sauce, cranberry and pistachio pilaf and spinach salad with caramelised lemons. in honour of converging visits from my mama, my aunt and my lovely friend linda.

3. seared tuna nicoise. monkeyhead treated me to post-yoga salad heaven last week with a little help from his new friend donna... and mack der messer.

4. the caff at uni hired a sushi chef. sometimes dresden surprises me.

check out video jug for filmic food fun. there are some nice little tips in there yessir.

it has been a never-endingly dreary winter this go 'round, so when the sun finally decided to make an appearance last saturday, i decided to celebrate with a refreshing thai-spiced chicken and some lemongrass rice salad. it looked a little like this:

sorry for the lacklustre presentation, but eating came after champagne which meant i no longer cared. it was quite simple. whilst preparing some basmati rice, cook up some chopped red chili, lemongrass and spring onion in a pan (for about three minutes). when the rice is finished, add this, some fish sauce, some lime juice, coriander, mint, and sugar. give it a stir, and she's done. for the chicken, prepare a bit of a base of egg white and rice flour, add some more red chili, coriander, sesame seed and lime leaves (i refuse to buy lime leaves by the thousand, so i didn't have any) and fry that on up. about three minutes a side. serve it with a simple dipping sauce of soy sauce, lemon juice and brown sugar.




be sure to keep the champagne flowing in the hot weather, and when you serve it, your guests are guaranteed to look like this:




they will be so happy that they'll forgive the lacklustre presentation, and offer you some of this:

(scotch)

which you will enjoy until the bike ride home becomes dangerous.

yum!yum! sunshiney fun!

(note: as a contact lens-wearer, you should always wear gloves when handling spicy, oily things. ouch ouch ouch the burning searing pain)

hi. it's me again. i'm figuring it out. guess i don't have to say that it's me all the time though, eh?

well. i was just thinking. and maybe the reason why i haven't been doing this is because i have fallen in love with being able to afford to eat in restaurants. being back in canada and all.

my friend sheila and i go out for brunch almost every sunday. and we always seem to end up at auntie's and uncle's - a very cosy locale just off college st here in toronto. every time i go there i hem and haw and talk about ordering something else, but i always always always get this:



scrambled eggs. cottage cheese. poached pears. and the most wonderful dill and dijon potato salad.






sheila is a bit more adventurous (that's her in the corner there), and usually opts for the bacon and greens.

hi. hi, it's me. hannah.
i decided to post.

felt a little foolish at first, because my food maybe isn't as tasty as miss abigail's. and my pictures are maybe not as nice. but i'm just little.

so i thought i might maybe share last night's dinner with you?

it's just a little roasted sweet potato and red onion soup. and then i found these really pretty long beans at the market on my bike home. so i thought maybe i'd put those on, too.


first post. yay! go, hannah, go!

bircher muesli muffins

lately i've been doing this incredibly nerdy thing involving breakfast-muffin-baking of a sunday afternoon. yes yes i know it is ridiculously domestic (and these little babies are sickeningly healthy) but they make the math look better in the morning light.

so here's the deal...

one! half a cup of rolled oats, a mashed banana, a grated apple, whatever other fruit you fancy and enough yoghurt to make a sloppy bircher muesli mess. sometimes i like to put in a little orange zest.

two! new bowl! one and a half cups o flour, sifted with three teaspoons of baking powder and one of cinnamon. throw in a big handful of chopped nuts or coconut or summin.

three! third of a cup each of honey and brown sugar in with the flour.

four! dried fruit, lots of, in the muesli. i like cranberries and apricots and dates.

five! mix everything together with an egg for good gooey measure. spoon in into twelve muffin forms and bake for twentyish minutes at one-eighty.

six! aaaaaah.