Traditional Tourtière & All Butter Pastry

Ahh, this thing was a masterpiece! I was inspired to make tourtière (pronounced tort-ee-AIR) for the first time this year in honour of Canada Day. My family on my paternal grandmother’s side is French Canadian, having arrived in Quebec in the 1690s. French Canadian cooking is the ultimate comfort food, I think—Quebec winters are bloody cold and it seems that even summer doesn’t last very long. Traditional dishes like split pea soup, maple syrup pie, tourtière, sugar pie, butter tarts, and all manner of other pastries and stick-to-your-bones baked goods and meats are actually pretty easy to cook, and I have plans on attempting a few other newer French Canadian treats too—croissants and bagels. Mm.

At its heart though, tourtière is a simple mince meat (usually pork) pie with some unique spicing; cinnamon and cloves. I grew up thinking this combination was absolutely normal, since that’s how dad always made hamburgers—turns out it’s a throwback to his Montreal upbringing.

The Australians to whom I served this thought it was fantastic, so I guess it goes to show that a delicious meat pie is going to be appreciated in any culture.

Also take note that I’ve used a new recipe for pastry—an all-butter one from Smitten Kitchen. I do quite love my basic pastry recipe, but it requires a few more ingredients and requires a careful hand. This all-butter pastry is very quick, ever-so-flaky, and hard to screw up! (And got compliments from boys who could care less about these things. Just sayin’.)

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Edited: July 10th, 2011

Luke’s Spaghetti Bolognese

Um, hi. It’s been too long, hasn’t it? So long in fact that my browser has actually forgotten my login information for the blog. Insert awkward laugh here. This should not be possible! My food blog is my baby! Anyway, life happens. C’est la vie, as they say. I’m happy to be back, and in some way it feels like that now we’ve passed the winter solstice here in Australia, I’ll have more opportunities for natural light food photos, which makes me quite the happy girl.

I have a fact to establish, in case you don’t already know: I cook for three boys. Two of them have never learned to cook, while the third (fortunately) is my fiancé and actually does very well in the kitchen. However, in my endeavours to get the other two comfortable doing things other than pouring sauce from a jar and ordering pizza, the fiancé really doesn’t get enough time in the kitchen—which is why it’s taken this long to share his beloved spaghetti bolognese recipe.

This is a family recipe, and one that holds much esteem with anyone who’s ever eaten at the Freeman house (which, trust me, is a heck of a large portion of Sydney’s north!). It’s a great go-to for feeding a horde of hungry…. um, anyones! Kids, teenagers, athletes, foreigners, colleagues, in laws, you name it. This spaghetti bolognese is great to roll out on any occasion (and it may have won me over way back in the day… just sayin’!).

Trust me on this one; when it comes to simple dinners, this one’s fantastic. Bring on the spaghetti!

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Edited: June 26th, 2011

100th Recipe: Chocolate Stout Cake

Isn’t it funny how things happen sometimes? A couple of weeks ago I simultaneously noticed that I was approaching my 100th recipe on the blog and that I was preparing to yet again make this cake for my roommate’s birthday. This is my go-to chocolate cake recipe, and once you have it in your repertoire, you will never need another chocolate cake recipe ever again. I promise. Anyway, I was flipping through my cookbook and came across the “real” recipe that I had originally torn out of an Elle Canada magazine, and it was like a classic glass-shattering moment in How I Met Your Mother: something clicked. The credit for the recipe was from Smitten Kitchen, one of my all-time favourite food blogs, and certainly one of the most well-known ones, too. But previous to Smitten Kitchen, I don’t think I knew of or cared about any food blogs, and definitely hadn’t ever thought of writing for my own! So somehow, this little recipe and my curiosity as to who could create such a masterpiece of a cake were the beginning of and the inspiration for all of the food blogging I’ve done to date. Um, and yeah, that’s just how freaking good this cake is.

It’s so good that, if you are a devout Three Cheeses reader, you may already be aware of the fact that I’ve blogged about this cake here. I’ve been meaning to make this cake and take “proper” photos of it to give it the justice it deserves. So, thanks to my roommate’s patience for allowing me to spend an extra half hour fussing over photos and lighting and details before letting him dig into his own birthday cake (welcome to the food blogger’s curse), I give you: chocolate stout cake, recipe 100!

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Edited: May 12th, 2011

Roast Leg of Lamb

Makes your mouth water a little bit, doesn’t it? I was at the Bondi Farmers Market this last weekend, acting as the in-house photographer (yep, I work for the folks that run the markets at Bondi Beach & Manly Beach on weekends, it’s a great gig!), and of course had to avail myself on all of the awesome veggies and breads and goodies there. It was a great market, and I don’t say that lightly! One of the best features of my home town in Canada is its tightly knit community, which in the summer seems to revolve around the local farmers market. I’ve grown up on fresh produce and market goods, and it was difficult to reconcile myself to second rate stuff at grocery stores when I moved away for university.

Fortunately, the Foodie Revolution means that farmers markets are cropping up everywhere and flourishing too. Have you noticed this? In both Sydney and Vancouver, the two cities I’ve lived in most recently, organizations are working hard to get these markets off the ground and to be the centres of their community. I think that this will certainly happen in Bondi—this oh-so-famous part of Sydney is chock full of folks who know what’s good for themselves and for the environment. Yay Bondi! There were hundreds of people at the markets this Saturday and I hope that it stays as busy for all the Saturdays to come.

What fell into my bag? Some organic carrots, a few chocolate croissants, a delicious fruit and nut loaf, and some wholewheat flour stone-ground by hand the day before I bought it, by the man who handed me the bag (yes!). It smells like heaven and I can’t wait to get baking with it. Seriously, life just doesn’t get better than a good farmers market!

While this leg of lamb is sadly not from the farmers market, it is a darn good recipe for a Sunday afternoon roast. (Which should totally come back into fashion, by the way—talk about a little effort for a lot of food!) So read on…

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Edited: May 3rd, 2011