Thanks to my return to the Montignac method I’ve discovered a new product without which I truly can’t imagine my culinary adventures anymore. I’m talking about Belsoy creamy soya preparation. In previous editions of Montignac’s books he’d often times use heavy cream, which I would skip. Somehow the name itself would  scare me enough to not want to even look at it, let alone cook with it. But my most recent purchase was a french edition of his recipe book and all of a sudden this soya cream sprung into life. He uses it in everything! So I researched it and it turned out there is a slight chance of finding the product chez nous. So I went on a caper with my loved one to look for it and to my outmost surprise I did find it! The caper really didn’t count as a caper, because we found it in “our” Dominion (read: it’s a caper only when you spend half a day looking for something). Nevertheless, I was a proud owner of a couple of 250ml cartons of Belsoy creamy soya preparation!
So what’s the big deal you ask? Well, the big deal is that it’s an awesome product that tastes like cream, with a very silky consistency, but without the bad stuff! See for yourself:
Up until a week ago or so, I cringed at having to deseed a pomegranate. Anybody who has ever tasted the delicious fruit knows what I am talking about and those who don’t should go to their local grocery store and get one. Now to spare you (and those who eat the fruit regularly) the pain, mess and labor of deseeding a pomegranate the traditional way I am going to share with you my newly discovered deseeding technique.
Usually, I would have put my pomegranate on a large place, prepared half a roll of paper towels and cut the bugger in half and just started poking at the seeds with whatever means available (read: own fingers). You don’t want to do that! Why? It’s extremely messy and everything that touches the red juice, and trust me it will go everywhere, will turn a gorgeous red colour.
So here is what you do:
1. Get a big bowl and fill it up with luke warm water.
2. Cut off the top and bottom of the pomegranate. Same way you do for peeling a pineapple. Just the tough skin, do not cut in too deep. You end up with a flat surface on the top and on the bottom.
3. Score the skin from top to bottom in 4 places as if though cutting it in quarters but not going all the way through, just cutting through the skin.
4. Immerse the entire pomegranate in the water and gently break it apart into 4 quarters. You’re using the scoring to do so by gently pushing the parts away from each other.
5. Once you have the pomegranate quartered you can take three quarters away on a plate and work on one at a time.
6. Now all you do, you do underwater separating this way the messy membrane from the seeds. Membrane will float in the water and the seeds being heavier will sink to the bottom. You can then fish out the membrane with a small strainer and voilà you end up with nicely separated seeds with no goopy white stuff. Now, do not strain the whole thing through a big strainer! It seems like a no-brainer, but you are going to be tempted to do it to get rid of the water. I simply fished out my seeds with my hands gently rinsing them with water before placing them in a container.
I assure you that this method is the cleanest and fastest one there is. The first time I tried it I kept reaching for the next quarter when there was none left! And you will not get anything red from the juice either!
I have seen another method of deseeding a pomegranate floating on the internet where you cut it in half and then pound it with a rolling pin until the seeds fall out. Somehow, I don’t even want to try this method, mostly because it sounds even more messy than my old method.
As for the chili peppers, my first and last encounter with them yesterday was a very painful one. I was making my mushroom soup and wanted it to have a kick, as per usual. So I had these red chili peppers kicking around in the fridge and thought I’d use them instead of the powder stuff and from then on my day went downhill. I picked the smallest there was in the package and cut it in half lengthwise. Then I scraped the seeds out with my fingers and rinsed the thing with water. As I was doing it I could already smell the spicy aroma, but somehow I wanted to make sure it was coming from the red thing and I put it closer to my nose to smell it. The odour was so strong that I jerked my head back as if punched by a professional boxer. So at that point I decided to only put a fraction of the pepper in my soup. I proceeded to cut off a tiny bit of the pepper, I chopped it up and put in my soup. At that point my nose was so full of the spicy aroma that I only had enough time to reach out for a tissue and blow it. There was no time for reflection. So I took care of my nose, wiping it thoroughly, using the same fingers that just scraped the seeds out of a red hot chili pepper! For the next 45 minutes of so I thought my nose was going to fall off! It was officially on fire and the only relief could come in a form of a wet face cloth stuck to my face. It was truly an awful experience. But I guess my loved one must be happy, because there is no way I’m ever experimenting with chili peppers again!
The weather outside suddenly turned very gray and cold, so I’m embracing the opportunity to talk soup, again. You might be thinking: “What does it matter if it’s gray and cold outside?” Well, it is commonly known that eating soups is linked with bad weather and cold seasons. Soups have warming up qualities. On the other hand, when it’s nice and sunny outside, people tend to reach for salads and cool dishes. Now, don’t ask me when we actually consumed this soup. We won’t go there.
Cooking vegetables has never been my favorite thing to do, let alone eating cooked vegetables. Things like broccoli and cauliflower have never entered my digestive system cooked. I just can’t get past the texture of these vegetables when they are fully cooked. I gave broccoli a try once by steaming it and then gently sauteing in olive oil, but that was the extent of it. I prefer them so much more in their raw form in a salad, that I do not mind at all. I quite enjoy their crunchiness. Now, when it comes to soups it’s a different story all together, because I mush the heck out of them.
I’ve gotten accustomed to putting grilled chicken breast into my soup. It gives it a very nice flavor and texture. I guess that’s what’s left from my past and the conviction that soup means meat….
We had this dish couple of days ago, when I started my “inventive mood”. I was making one soup a day and suddenly felt like I needed to break it up a little. The temperature outside was rising and I kept feeding my boys these hot soups and from the looks on their faces I deduced that they might soon fire me from my cooking duties for making them suffer through yet another bowl of hot soup. So I decided to reach for inspiration to Randy’s favorite restaurant (Oliver’s) and our latest visit there. We both had the same dish, which was linguine and chicken in some extremely rich creamy-cheesy sauce. Yes, I know that was sinful, but we went there in celebration of a year since our first face-to-face meeting, so we made an exception. I remember the sauce was so rich that I was unable to finish it, even though it was quite delicious. So part of my inspiration came from that meal at Oliver’s, even though the only ingredient that both of the meals share is the chicken. Now I needed to find something that would replace the heavy cream that was surely used in the meal at Oliver’s and I decided it would have to be Silken Soft Tofu. I’ve used it before, so I knew the consistency was just perfect for making sauces and dips. I also got inspired by that picture on the box on your right, even though, mine looks nothing like it.
So here is my invention. Mind you, it’s not even half as sinful as the one at Oliver’s….
My mom used to have some staple recipes of her own when I was growing up. One of them would have been her famous breaded chicken breast. Every time she’d buy some boneless chicken breasts, we knew that our favorite meal would have been served that day. Sometimes she would switch it around a bit and use pork chops instead, for a little bit of a different taste and texture. To soften up the meat, she would pound it flat first and that way any stubborn pork transformed itself into a manageable piece of meat. The meat would get seasoned, usually just with salt and pepper. Then she’d take a whole egg or two and beat it to have a wet mixture to dip the meat in. Then she would prepare the breading that consisted only of white bread breadcrumbs. Next, she’d dip the meat in the egg and in the breading twice each and fry the meat in canola oil. There was something about that meal that we all loved. It was probably its simplicity and its homeyness.
Even though it was home made, today I opt for a healthier version of this meal. I found a very similar recipe in one of the Clean Eating magazines, but unfortunately couldn’t follow it very closely because it called for Whole-Wheat Panko and at the time I made this meal I had never heard of this Panko business. Mind you, since then I have found it in Sobeys!! So I will be trying this with the real thing. For this one I substituted Panko with Whole Wheat Bran and flax seed. As for spices, I guess you can be as creative as you’re comfortable with. The egg white can also be substituted with low-fat buttermilk. You can marinate the meat in buttermilk overnight to give it more flavour.
I wonder if my mom would enjoy my Not-so-breaded chicken as much as we loved hers…..
Thanks to my return to the Montignac method I’ve discovered a new product without which I truly can’t imagine my culinary adventures anymore. I’m talking about Belsoy creamy soya preparation. In previous editions of Montignac’s books he’d often times use heavy cream, which I would skip. Somehow the name itself would  scare me enough to not want to even look at it, let alone cook with it. But my most recent purchase was a french edition of his recipe book and all of a sudden this soya cream sprung into life. He uses it in everything! So I researched it and it turned out there is a slight chance of finding the product chez nous. So I went on a caper with my loved one to look for it and to my outmost surprise I did find it! The caper really didn’t count as a caper, because we found it in “our” Dominion (read: it’s a caper only when you spend half a day looking for something). Nevertheless, I was a proud owner of a couple of 250ml cartons of Belsoy creamy soya preparation!
So part of my inspiration came from that meal at Oliver’s, even though the only ingredient that both of the meals share is the chicken. Now I needed to find something that would replace the heavy cream that was surely used in the meal at Oliver’s and I decided it would have to be Silken Soft Tofu. I’ve used it before, so I knew the consistency was just perfect for making sauces and dips. I also got inspired by that picture on the box on your right, even though, mine looks nothing like it.
