Meals from Granville Island

[Ling]

How was the lamb from Tenderland?

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I haven't grilled the chops yet, but the ground lamb from Tenderland made *fantastic* lamb burgers.

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I love the meat at Tenderland. I buy venison there...and gigantic lamb shanks for braising.

[Ann_T]

Arne, the Duck Confit at Oyama is excellent.

Everything in last nights dinner was from the Granville Market except for the tenderloin which was from Windsor Meats.

We had Filete Al Chipotle. The recipe was out of The Taste of Mexico Cookbook by Patrician Quintanta. I bought most of the ingredients at South China Seas Trading Company including the corn tortillas and the Manchego Cheese was from Dussa's Cheese. Bought the pinto beans at The Grainry and the tomatoes and onions for the salsa from Sunlight Farms. One stop shopping.

[canucklehead]

Ooooh Wow... That steak looks so good - it is like a physical assault. I may have so bring legal action here. Otherwise - how would you feel about adopting a 30-something son? No diapers to change (usually)!

[Ling]

Ann, that meal looks delicious and colorful.

Arne, I can second that the duck confit from Oyama is quite good, and relatively inexpensive compared to the duck confit in the coolers at Les Amis, and at Stong's (from Hill's Foods).

[Vancouver Lee]

Wow, Ann, that tenderloin looks amazing. That's a corn tortilla over top of and underneath the meat?

[Ann_T]

Thanks for the nice comments. Lee, the steak rests on a corn tortilla but what you are seeing on top is melted Manchego cheese. This recipe is definitely a keeper. I know when my husband is still talking about last nights dinner in the morning then it was especially good.

Ann

[Ling]

Here's a meal I made last week. Most of the ingredients were purchased from Granville Island. Exceptions include the pate choux and pastry dough (homemade).

goat cheese and Parmigiano Reggiano mousse in pate choux

salmon tartare, baguette from La Baguette (on Granville Island)

plating picture...I use my hands. Is that bad...

pan-seared pheasant on swiss chard, figs, and foie gras

caramel apple pie (yes, I used a snowflake cookie cutter for the top crust...because it's Christmas and I'm corny...haha)

Edited January 4, 2006 by Ling (log)

[fud]

plating picture...I use my hands. Is that bad...

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Using hands is the ONLY way to plate!!

[barolo]

That pheasant looks great. It all looks good, but the pheasant plate really caught my eye.

I see what looks like a cookbook beside you in your plating picture - was this dish prepared from a recipe, your own creation or a little of both?

[Ling]

Yes, that's The French Laundry cookbook. The recipe uses squab, but I couldn't find any on GI so I bought a pheasant from Armando's. They were selling the same pheasants at Tenderland, but the line was a little longer there.

The pate choux is Pichet Ong's recipe. I use this recipe for both savoury and sweet applications...my current favourite way to eat them is stuffed with coconut cream! Here's a pic of a plate I did a few days ago:

And filled with salmon mousse for Christmas:

All the vegetables, the figs, the apples, the baguette, the cheeses--all from GI. The foie gras is from Les Amis.

[barolo]

Oyama had smoked duck and chicken halves on the weekend - $6.99 for duck and $4.99 for a chicken half. Good for sandwiches or just snacking.

[shona m f pearson]

Smoked chicken halves !!!! we shredded the meat and served it on pea shoot and cherry tomato salad with goat feta - excellent !!! Will let you know about stock simmering from bones - am hoping for a nice round, smoky, flavour. I'll buy these again of course.

Also can never resist the firecracker pepperoni sticks, to munch on walking around the market : )

[annanstee]

The Organic Connection has fantastic lemons right now- so juicy and they actually taste...extra lemony

Made a salad dressing with them, some pear from the same place, and some olive oil and salt. Dressed Butter lettuce from one of the other purveyors there, red onion, goat cheese, sweet and hot pecans, strawberries. I know its early for them, but the pomegranates were all gone.

The butter lettuce came with the roots still on- it was branded "live lettuce" or something; you can keep it on your counter in a little water. It was the most perfect looking lettuce I have seen in ages. Not a wilted leaf. .99 a head and all usable.

[flowbee]

last fall i tried these new apples at GI. they were called "mutsu"...they were heavenly! gosh tasted the best in sept/oct... by dec/jan they were tasting mealy

one of my favourite snack/meals is to buy some ready-to-eat sausages, some crusty bread and beer and just sit down on the couch and munch and drink. my favourite ready-to-eat sausages from GI are the double-smoked polish (or were they hungarian?) sausages. i know landjaeger are getting really popular, and i see them everywhere, but i much prefer the richer taste of the double-smoked. that specialty cheese/sausage shop at GI is crazy! i can never decide what to get! any other sausage-heads out there who can recommend some other types of sausage?

[barolo]

I bought my first local strawberries of the season today at Granville Island and got great service - I was asked how much I wanted to spend and strawberries were hand selected for me. I got $10 worth, which was a lot at $3.00 a pound, and I look forward to strawberries at breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next few days.

The beginning of the season alway brings back a childhood memory of local strawberries - sliced and served on buttered toast for supper, outside at the picnic table. The berries were bought at a stand a couple of blocks away and grown in our community. Those strawberry fields are long gone, but the memory persists.

I also saw Okanagan cherries, which seemed really early to me.

Next week the West End farmers' market opens and I'm really looking forward to eating lots of fresh BC produce and fruit for the next four months or so!

[canucklehead]

Now that local strawberries are coming in - I am going to start on John Bishop's rum pot recipe. I am loving his new cookbook offering "Fresh".

Basically you select local fruits and let them sit in rum - and then enjoy the resulting elixir come Christmas time. His suggestion is to add berries as they come into season to the rum mix. Genius! What a way to best of our local bounty in the cold winter months.

Into 26 oz of rum - add equal weights of strawberry and sugar. Then in turn, raspberries, cherries, and finally blueberries. The toughest part was finding a 4 liter glass container to hold it all (finally found one at Gourmet Warehouse).

[Bubbalicious]

Been selling wine now at Liberty on Granville a few hours twice a week. One weekday and one weekend day. I've noticed that at about noon the traffic lanes on the weekend days look more like slowly-moving parking stalls. Just for giggles I feel like gathering some island folk and picketing at the intersection under the bridge with signs that read: IF YOU PLAN ON DRIVING ON TO THE ISLAND AND FINDING A SPACE TO PARK YOU ARE ARE DREAMING. Maybe the CMHC should erect such a sign. The simplest and least frustrating thing to do is find a place off-island and stroll in.

Although it is prepared on the island and meant for immediate consumption, the hot breakfast cereal is fantastic at the Stock Market. Served until 11.

And wouldn't it be helpful if the floors of all the aisles were painted a different colour so that you could say "I got these great pears at the fruitstand in the blue aisle." or "Oyama Meats is at the intersection of the green and red aisle."

I've also been loving the grilled avocado, brie and tomato sandwich on the simplest of white buns from La Baguette et Echalotte. (sp?) This too is off-topic as it is meant for enjoying on the island. Will this missive be deleted? Hope not.

One last word of advice: while waiting for your JJ Bean coffee turn around and enjoy the flowers.

[Daddy-A]

One last word of advice: while waiting for your JJ Bean coffee turn around and enjoy the flowers.

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Amen to that! I start my day like that every morning when I'm working in the area.

I'm with you on La Baguette, but when I worked on GI (@ Longliner) I would gather buns, cheese, meats, etc. and using the mustard and mayo I kept in the fridge would make my own sandwich for lunch. Cheap and awesome!

A.

[barolo]

One last word of advice: while waiting for your JJ Bean coffee turn around and enjoy the flowers.

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Amen to that! I start my day like that every morning when I'm working in the area.

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Me too, not working but shopping.

Today there was a vendor selling greenhouse-grown heritage tomatoes for $3.50 a pound. I bought some so I could do a taste test against the regular hot house tomatoes.

Appartently there's a vendor (different one) who sells greenhouse heritages at the Trout Lake market, but there's a huge line up as soon as the market opens. I don't go to Trout Lake and we haven't had any show up at the West End market, so its nice to see them show up at Granville Island. No line ups.

[Mark Donnelly]

In the spirit of attaching photos, here's a few from my last dinner party.

Dinning Table

Pea and Coconut Cappuccino (David Everitt-Matthias)

Dungeness Crab Salad with Avocado and Apple Compote

Tomato Tart with Goats Cheese and Tomato Vinaigrette

Herb Crusted Organic Rack of Lamb with Potatoes Anna and Glazed Carrots

Raspberry Milkshake (John Campbell)

Chocolate and Vanilla Cheesecake

Nothing from GI. Sources were organic butcher in Dundarave (Sebastian's), Save-on-Foods, Whole Foods and Safeway.

[KarenDW]

Into 26 oz of rum - add equal weights of strawberry and sugar.  Then in turn, raspberries, cherries, and finally blueberries.  The toughest part was finding a 4 liter glass container to hold it all (finally found one at Gourmet Warehouse).

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I'm thinking this could also be good w/ a berry "wine" from Westham Island or Sanduuz...

[eatrustic]

This coming weekend (Nov.4) will be the sad and inevitable end of the season for both the vendors of the heirloom tomatoes and apples.

I luckily was at G.I. doing a bit of shopping yesterday and bought a great selection of heirloom apples to make my killer (hopefully) version of the ultimate apple pie: (Bramleys, Ashtons, Brown Jerseys and Gravensteins). They really had a wonderful selection of apples that I have rarely if ever seen. (Also, Quince and an old variety of Crabapple). Their last date is next Sunday.

As well, the guys who have the amazing selection of heirloom tomatoes will be calling it a day next Sunday. They have been at G.I. all summer with their heirlooms grown in soil but with the help of polytunnels to extend the season. They were supposed to have produced until Dec. but due to heating issues picked everything they had left. (They have also been supplying Whole Foods all summer long.)

He plans to expand from 50,000 to 100,000 square feet of growing space by next year and will be a huge force in Vancouver for heirlooms. (Looks like Milan picked a good time to hang it up!)

I've actually been making more tomato sauce with their tomatoes than eating fresh. Just some good extra virgin olive oil, garlic and a pinch of chiles finished with some of the last of my basil plant and I'll freeze whatever I don't consume (yeah, a bit pricey but worth it flavour wise!)

[canucklehead]

Looks like Milan picked a good time to hang it up!

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Shit.

[hummingbirdkiss]

my Granville Island special is ...

prawns scallops and any other seafood that looks good ..cooked with double smoked bacon as the only fat ... finished with fresh figs. sliced ripe pears and heavy cream ...lots of cracked pepper

all bought there and brought back to cook in the room (I have to have a kitchen when I visit ..there are just too many foods to try!) ...it is the most romantic wonderful dinner I can think of

I have a pic someplace of this dish will post if I can find it ..

[hummingbirdkiss]

here you go ..not perfectly plated ..not completely in the pan ..but it is a to die for dish and totally worth driving all the way to Vancouver to prepare!