We don’t eat out a lot, but when we do with our little children we mostly get something along the lines of fast food; a burger or sandwich.  Now that they’re getting a little older and can sit for an hour or so we’ve been going out to middle of the road sit down restaurants: places in Southern Ontario like Casey’s, Montana’s, Kelsey’s.  Two things struck me when we went back to these types of restaurants: they’re not cheap and the food isn’t that good.  We can do better by …

I buy all my spices whole and in bulk or loose form from a few stores in my area including The Bulk Barn and Fortinos.  I also like to get my dry goods in the same format in manageable quantities.  Whole spices last longer than ground and everything benefits from an airtight a container as possible.

I tried a variety of plastic containers until I settled on glass canning jars.  In my area they come in sizes from 250 ml  to 1.5 l with the classic metal lid; they all come …

I was making chicken roulades stuffed with smoked pork loin and Gouda this week and was concerned with them keeping their shape.  I pounded out the chicken breasts between pieces of plastic wrap until they were quite thin, then put the ham and cheese inside and rolled them.  I then wrapped each roulade in the same plastic wrap and made a tight bundle by twisting the ends, then chilled in the refrigerator for a few hours.

After unwrapping them and breading in flour, egg and panko bread crumbs they cooked in …

I needed some lemon juice for a recipe but I only had an old lemon in the fruit bowl that had become very stiff.  I remembered reading something about heating an old lemon to juice it so I put the lemon in the microwave for thirty seconds.

Taking it out the lemon had softened considerably: it juiced very easily.  Next time I’ll remember to let the lemon cool  before cutting it open!

I’ve been buying whole pork loins lately: they come with a lovely pork loin for about two thirds and sirloin for the last third.  The loin is very nice but the sirloin on these pieces is jagged and just isn’t pretty, so I cut it off.  I find this cut works wonderfully for two applications: my and a slow roast smoked on my big green egg.

The front roast is my smoked slow roasted sirloin and in the rear is the cured and smoked sirloin.  The sirloin is a …

I had enjoyed double smoked bacon when I worked at a German butcher shop during high school but haven’t seen it much since.  It was my monthly or quarterly bacon prep and I was smoking a pork belly and a half loin, both prepared with my .
Unfortunately I didn’t time it well: I started smoking on my but only achieved two hours of hot smoking when I have to pull everything to prepare steaks for dinner.  The bacon had achieved an internal temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit but the …

As a huge fan of Saveur magazine I was thrilled to see they ran a piece on making your own bacon at home a few years ago.  Of course I have my own recipe I enjoy so I forgot about the article until last month when I was perusing Saveur’s web site and came across the recipe online.
Since I like to work with five pound pork bellies and want pink salt in my cure I modified the recipe as follows.  It turned out well but I found the bacon very …

I was in Niagara Falls New York on the weekend and stopped into Tops Markets.  While wandering the aisles I noticed prices were about the same as Southern Ontario; that is until I started looking at staples.
By staples I mean bread, butter, milk, eggs, sugar, flour.  I pay about $4.79 for four liters of whole (3.25% fat) milk, Tops was selling a gallon for $1.99.  I pay $1.99 for a dozen large eggs, Tops had them for $0.99.  I pay $2.97 for a pound of butter, Tops was $1.69.  Basically Tops shoppers are …

After a few sausage smoking sessions with my Big Green Egg and the I was happy with the results but found I was only fitting about fifteen sausages on the grill at one time.  Since it was a three to four hour time investment I wanted to fit as many on as I could, which let me back to the Big Green Egg web site and to my local barbeque shop Chadwick & Hacks.  There is a new three tier rack but it doesn’t hold a lot, which left …

We’re dealing with two issues at home that have made a realignment in our grocery shopping: a limited budget and a desire to buy only Ontario produced food.  I should say up front that organic is not a target: we’re happy with provincially grown produce and meat.
To stick to any kind of budget and reduce your food spending requires you to make a weekly menu, buy what you need for that menu and don’t deviate or buy extra.  I couldn’t believe how much we saved when we stopped picking up …