Okanagancook

My first attempt at Jamaican Patties and a nice salad with asparagus soup.

ElsieD, forgot about Raymonds. Article here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/jeremy-charles-canadas-real-top-chef/article20495580/ Hope you got there on your trip.

Equal volume for eggs, milk and flour...4 large eggs is usually around 3/4 cup. The secret is to let the batter rest. I made mine at 2 pm and let it sit on the counter until 7 pm when I made. This time I made double quantities and had to bake them on two racks in the oven and the one on the bottom first did not rise as much. A single recipe and only one muffin tin in the oven at a time!

For the Yorkshire Puds, I used this recipe: http://britishfood.about.com/od/regionalenglishrecipes/r/yorkspuds.htm works every time

Roast Prime Ribs with yorkshire puddings, asparagus with hollandaise, parsnip puree, and roasted shallots in a mustard herb butter with a splash of sherry vinegar. Yum. Roast cooked at 250 F after searing for around 30 min to the pound and taken out at 124F

We get grass fed beef from just north of here and the flavour is wonderful. The meat does require a bit more chewing but I don't mind that. We do a bit of sous vide cookery with the less tender cuts but generally buy their prime rib and steaks including the flank. The Flank when cooked sous vide for a little longer than commercial flank gets very tender. We also get grass fed lamb from the same farmers and the meat is so tender it is the best we have ever had. Even a slice of leg meat or shoulder chop can be grilled and still almost fork tender. The meat is very lean as well.

FrogPrincesse, EYB for sure and I have to thank you for sharing your recipe experiences on that site. People are getting better and better at offering their thoughts. I have all the books in your picture save for Ready for Dessert and the Country Cooking of France (have the Country Cooking of Ireland though). I have not made much from Sunday Suppers yet mainly because I have been trying to get a little weight off me before the summer but the recipes look quite involved but fun to make. Tomorrow I am making two prime rib roasts for seven people and will use the Cooks Illustrated: Meats recipe for a low and slow cooked roast. Have made it several times.

Vegetable Literacy by D. Madison Jacque Pepin Favourites All About Roasting

I'll be interested in the lamb necks seeing I have three in the freezer! Love lamb neck and the sous vide rig would keep it nice and moist but still medium rare....kinda like beef short ribs...yes. I will try the same temps as the beef ribs. cheers.

Curious as to how this turned out for you. I've got a beef tongue in the freezer which I want to do like this. Thanks, if you have time to post. cheers.

Welcome and ditto to what everyone else has said about the amazing people who contribute here. Beware of topics in the "Kitchen Consumer" category. There are loads of wonderful cooking devices which are reviewed and their use experience shared here. I figure I have bought around $10,000 worth of them since joining! However, I must say I don't regret buying any of them and am thankful to have learned about them here. Ditto goes for the "Cookbooks and References" category. Cheers, and don't be timid about joining in.

I have made asparagus soup with blanched tips in the pureed soup. Frozen it then when eaten I found the tips really 'mushy' and they weren't blanched for long so still 'crisp'. So, now I just made really concentrated asparagus soup thickened with either rice or potato and blended. Hope that helps.

Meant to say, "not quite enough liquid" (so much for trying to post in a hurry). I think I will dilute it with more chicken stock when we eat the other half. I like the texture of the rice. Oh, and I used home made pancetta which I think made it probably more "pancettay" than using commercial.

Roast chicken with a 'gazpacho' sauce; grilled asparagus with honey-sherry vinegar dressing and rice with a hint of cumin and clove with pine nuts and raisins. I really liked that rice. The spice was in back ground and I used a short grain rice and kept it a little el dente

First radish of the year along with some more spinach.

Asparagus soup from Zuni cafe. Minced pancetta, onions, asparagus, rice and parsley. Quite not a lotos liquid so quite filling. Good flavours. I used some of the small asparagus for the soup.

Two lamb chop dinners. First one is with grilled zucchini, eggplant,and onion with Ted Reader's spicy sauce and fingerling potatoes. The marinade for the lamb is from Global Grill and has herbs de provence, etc and a compound butter with shallot, honey and vinegar. Didn't much care for the butter...too acidic. Second is roasted cauliflower with vadoulvan and the rest of the eggplant. For the eggplant I use Modernist Cuisine's method of microwaving the slices on high for 3 minutes. Then they get a light spray with oil and then grilled.

Emeril's lemon pepper dressing with fresh greens and cajun shrimp.

I really like the sound of those. Probably messy to eat with crumbs of filo shattering as one bites into it. Wonder if a thin strip if prosciutto wrapped around the asparagus before the filo would work? Or perhaps put the meat on the outside.

Thanks Huiray, both dishes look good especially the andouille with asparagus.

Over on the dinner thread we had a little flurry of activity on the subject of asparagus. Well, we have the Armstrong asparagus ready here in the Okanagan. I just bought two bags full. Some pencil thin and some nice and fat. They are always shipped in boxes so they are lying down and as you can see from the photo, some of the tops are a little bit bent but the heads are tight. Armstrong is about 100 kilometres from here. It just arrived according to the store. I am going to make a salad with some of the big ones, dressed with a tangerine and pistachio vinaigrette from The New Spanish Table. For dinner I'm looking for a recipe with scallops or shrimp to go with the asparagus and some ricotta dumplings I have in the freezer. What is your favourite way of eating asparagus?

Have not used the thicker stalks for salad. Will try that when the spring crop arrives. Asparagus grows wild in the Okanagan. Used to be more of it before the use of herbicides wiped a lot of it out but the older farmers have their secret patches! We get farmed asparagus from north of Lake Okanagan. Lasts about three weeks at which time we gorge on it. I don't buy imported asparagus because it just doesn't compare to what we get locally.

I have to agree about thicker asparagus for cooked. I do use raw in salads where of course thinner is usually better. We have some wild asparagus which is thin and tough unless you take just the tips and use them as a base for soups.

Recently discovered the best tortilla chips, well, to my taste. There are various flavours but I like the sea salt: President's Choice Kettle Style Tortilla chips. Delicious. Bubbly, crispy surface with the right amount of salt and the right thickness AND they are packaged in a sturdy waxed paper bag so that aren't all crushed. Tortilla chips are one of those foods that if they are in the house, I eat them. Even four of these beauties can stave off cravings.

mm84321: beautiful dishes. I have a question for you seeing that our asparagus season is coming up. Thick or thin stalks? Last year I went for the thick stalks. Snapped off the fibrous end and did gentle peel on the stalks.