Ling

Hi everyone! tammylc tagged me for the next week and I'm starting today since my menu will be a little more interesting since it's (Canadian) Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house. Starting tomorrow, however, you will be following me as I peruse the supermarket aisles looking for whatever's cheap, on sale, and halfway edible. I've been lurking on egullet for awhile, so I guess I should introduce myself. I'm a 4th year English major at UBC currently living in sin as I am staying with my boyfriend. Right now, we're trying to support ourselves while saving up for an apartment, and one area where we've had to drastically cut down on spending is groceries. I'm in school full-time, and work part-time as a private English tutor. I also work Saturdays at a tutoring center for peanuts. Anyway, onto Thanksgiving. I've been preparing food for tonight's dinner since Friday! It's my first time making an entire Thanksgiving meal by myself. I guess I should mention that though I'm on a shoestring budget, I do appreciate good food. I live in Vancouver, and my bf and I have dined at some of the nice restaurants like West and Lumiere. I enjoyed my food at West more. (BTW: I hope David Hawksworth reads my thread...he is my hero ) Today I woke up late and had to grab breakfast on the run. I ate 10 sourcream Timbits (from Tim Horton's, a sandwich/soup/donut chain in Canada) and a few fun-sized chocolate bars (Mars, Twix). I should mention that today's menu might shock some of you b/c of the plethora of junk food consumed, but I assure you I don't eat like this all the time. I just got caught on a bad day. Tim Horton's sourcream donuts are my favorite. The sourcream donuts are very dense, with an almost creamy interior. Not covered in a cloying sugary glaze. I brought donuts for my student...raspberry-filled, a couple of chocolate ones, some chocolate and coconut. Mmm... After our 2 hour lesson, I drove to Save-on-Foods to buy a pumpkin pie. Yesterday when I was there, I ate 8 samples from the (unmanned) sample tray. (BTW: That was basically yesterday's dinner. I told you I was poor. ) Today the sample trays held pieces of supermarket-quality Black Forest cake, birthday cake, olive and asiago ciabatta bread (which I love) and garlic toast. I had a sample of the Black Forest. Bleah. Got home, and ate a large piece of pumpkin pie. Since then, I've been picking at the rest of the pie every few minutes. I've already eaten more than a quarter of the 9" pie. No one else in my family will go near pumpkin, so I buy myself one every Thanksgiving. Also ate a handful of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. I then got started on a pistachio sponge cake and the cornbread. Cornbread doesn't seem to be very popular in Canada; I've actually only eaten it twice in my life. For the cornbread, I combined ingredients from 3 recipes that I found earlier in the week--1 from Epicurious and the other 2 right here in the egullet recipe archive! (I used mamster's Yankee cornbread and Rachel Perlow's skillet cornbread). Both the cake and the cornbread look good. The turkey is in the oven and I just poured 2 bottles of beer over the big pan of veggies. This is what I'll be eating for dinner tonight: -turkey/gravy/cranberry sauce -sausage, artichoke, sourdough bread, cheese stuffing--found the recipe on Epicurious, and I followed it but doubled the amount of sausage -cornbread (thanks mamster and Rachel) -taboulleh salad -garlic bread (No veggies or roasted sweet potatoes for me when there's so much better-tasting stuff around). For dessert, I made the pistachio sponge cake and I'm serving it with whipped cream. I also made this Cappucino-Fudge cheesecake on Friday for tonight's dessert. Here's the link to the recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=106231 I used Callebaut chocolate since you can get it in the bulk section of Superstore for 99 cents/100 grams. Unfortunately, my cheesecake doesn't have a pretty lattice top since my (cheap) pastry bag exploded when I was trying to pipe the ganache. I bought the pastry bag for 6 bucks! What a waste of money... I had to instead pour the ganache over the top of the cheesecake. Decorated it with chocolate covered espresso beans.

I'll start with today, since I'm at my parents' house cooking Thanksgiving dinner. At least it'll be a little more interesting than my ultra-cheap menu for the next week.

Wow. The mexican food sounds delish, but the chocolate corn sounds totally nasty. Pregnancy must make you very hungry, btw! I'm really enjoying this blog. Don't tag me unless you want to know how a college student eats on a ghetto budget.

That's great, Ling. Thank you-- I didn't find it because it isn't a pie, it's a "Derby Style" Bourbon Pecan Tart! That is the one you meant, right? Yes...I swear, everytime I look at that picture, I drool.... Haven't tried the recipe yet though. My family doesn't like pecan pie, so if I make it, I'll have to eat the whole thing.

Sourdough bread with lots of butter. Chocolate almonds, chocolate cashews, and chocolate macadamia nuts. Mmmmm!

I remember seeing a Pecan Bourbon pie recipe right here in Egullet's recipe archive. The photo looks good enough to eat. The pie is a deep-dish one, I believe. Yummm....

Agreed. Pho Lan in Richmond is definitely notches above Pho Hoang. :)

My favorite congee is from Viva City (pink sign...in a corner of the complex) on No. 3 Rd. and Cambie Rd. in Richmond. The preserved duck egg, dried oyster, and salted pork congee (their speciality) is DELICIOUS! And I don't normally like congee! :)

The pudding cookie recipe is the one I'll try next. My current favorite is Anna Olson's recipe found on www.foodtv.ca There's brown sugar in the recipe. I could eat the dough by the mixing-bowl full!

Have you guys heard of The South Beach diet? It's supposed to be a healthier version of the low-carb approach. The diet emphasizes olive oil, lean protein (chicken breast, fish, other seafood, lean pork and beef) and vegetables. There's no dairy, fruit, sugar, or grain products for the first 2 weeks, but after those two weeks you can start adding a fair amount of "good carbs", i.e. 100% whole wheat bread and pasta, fruit, etc.

Today I made: -escargot in a veloute pernod sauce? (Blah...wasn't a very good recipe) -Braised rabbit in mustard sauce with porcini risotto and parm reggiano -coffee creme brulee It was my first time cooking rabbit. I have a picture but I'm not sure how to upload it.

I don't like Fortune for dim sum at all, but I do like Sun Sui Wah a lot. A new(er) place that seems very popular is Shiang Garden in Richmond (city next to Vancouver). It is next to Parker Place, and maybe 2 minutes away from the Sun Sui Wah in Richmond if you know where that's located. :)

Chocolate Toffee Butter cookies Here's one of my favourite recipes from the Vancouver Egullet cookie exchange! 2 c AP flour 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 c unsalted butter 1 c packed light brown sugar 1 eg 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 c Heath toffee bits 1 c semisweet chocolate chips 1 T vegetable oil 2/3 c finely chopped pecans 1) Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together. With electric mixer, beat brown sugar and butter on medium until fluffy (~ 3 minutes) Add egg and vanilla and beat until combined about 30 seconds further. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in two parts and mix until incorporated. Stir in toffee bits. Divide dough in half and roll each into a log about 9 inches long and 1 ½ inches in diameter. Then flatten log until about 2 ½ inches wide. Wrap and refrigerate until firm about 1 ½ hours. 2) Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Like 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. 3) Using a chef’s knife, cut dough into ¼ inch slices, transfer to baking sheets spacing about 1 inch apart. Bake until just browned around edges, 10-12 minutes, rotating the direction and position of the baking sheets halfway through. Cool completely on baking sheets and use remaining dough to make second batch. 4) Transfer cookies to wire rack set over baking sheets. Melt chocolate and mix with oil until smooth. Drizzle chocolate cookies and sprinkle with pecans. Don’t touch until chocolate sets – about 1 hour. ( RG1527 )