Frozen Fruit Yogurt Desert

Summer time and the living is easy. My Canadian friends are complaining about the heat. I just feel like MrD and I are back home in Manila. Of course it is more humid there but the heat is similar.
The best thing about the heat is cooling off with some home made frozen deserts and here are a couple of ideas for super fast and always easy frozen fruit and yogurt recipes. I keep several kinds of fruit in the freezer compartment of my refrigerator so I have some handy ingredients when I need a fast desert or a cool down snack.
Just add a couple of scoops of frozen fruit in a food processor or blender and add enough low fat yogurt and a little fruit juice so the mixture blends evenly. I often use frozen bananas which are very sweet so you don’t need extra sweetener but sometimes a splash or two of maple syrup is added to bring out the sweetness of the berries and add a dimension of flavour. This kind of frozen desert works best made on demand and eaten right away but in a time crunch you can do it before your guests arrive and leave it sit in the freezer until you need to serve it.
The two examples in the photos are frozen blueberries with cherry yogurt and the other is frozen mango, banana and fresh cranberries blended with lemon yogurt. Remember these fruits are frozen, not fresh so the desert comes out frozen.
Next time I want to try frozen banana and peanut butter with a spoon of nutella and plain yogurt.

Granville Island Public Market

I had thought I would be updating this week from Moncton, New Brunswick but MrD and I have postponed our eastern excursion until September. So, it’s Vancouver this week. I think it’s time for a tourist report from my favourite local market.
Having a bountiful market is a true gift I value, having lived and traveled in so many lands where food is not only scarce but definitely not of the best quality. We Canadians are blessed and fortunate. No one actually needs twenty eight varieties of organic wild game salami and twelve varieties of potatoes, but I ain’t complaining.
Granville Island Market, Vancouver’s perfect place for fresh local ingredients, is a source of many of my Trophy H dinners. Here is where I go to find wild mushrooms, game meats and spectacular sea food. Once a week I take a water taxi across to the island and do my shopping to stock up the pantry. I usually also buy an armload of flowers and a gooey cinnamon bun for MrD who stays home to run the empire while I do the marketing.
My Trophy H tips for visiting Granville Island Public Market is to go in the morning so you can be there when it opens at 9 am. I go on Thursdays. All the produce coming in for the weekend has arrived so you are getting first choice of the finest wares. The market just gets too crowded for actual shopping later when the tourists flock in to ogle our super salmon, salivate at our fat sausages and try to sneak photos of me in one of my stunning, get out of my road, outfits. Avoid the weekends and the inevitable crowds. If its not the food you are shopping for, but all that other artsy stuff, then you need to know that most galleries open at 11am.
Granville Island Public Market is a must for both the serious cook and tourists with their digital cameras and all that holiday vacationer cash to spend. It is the place for me to meet other chefs from around town. We compare notes on what is fresh and in season. We share tips and ideas. The dealers often grill us on what we plan to make with their ingredients. Sometimes we bring them tastes and recipes with our thanks.
The market has ample place to sit and relax with a cup of java and a new found pastry friend. You can eat well in the noisy packed food court or brown bag it with your finds and go outside, sit down and enjoy one of the best views of Vancouver. Mind not to feed those pesky birds.
Have a great week, my silent reader, of shopping, cooking and sharing food with friends.

Last week’s guests have gone home and MrD and I are adjusting to scaffolding set up in our great room. About 3 months ago the workers renovating our upstairs neighbour’s condo damaged a major water pipe that created a trail of disaster for 18 floors. I was back home in Manila when all that happened but fortunately MrD was here to handle the immediate mess. Because the flooding affected so many units a disaster team was called in to do the whole job for all the units. The results are such that three months later workmen are finally here on site fixing up the dry wall. The ceiling in that room is 21 feet high so they had to install scaffolding. I am told the industrial monkey bars will in all likelihood be set up for about two weeks while they dry wall and then paint and texture. This weekend I took advantage of the equipment and had a ceiling fan installed to circulate some of this rare hot air summer has brought us.
In spite of the chaos I keep putting meals on the table for MrD. Here are this week’s three easy to prepare dishes that even you, my silent reader can make on your own.
The heat of summer always seems to keep my hunger level down. The higher the temperature the less time I want to spend chewing food. Salads, sandwiches and nibbles are perfect summer choices.
At this time of year so many of the local tomatoes are being featured at the markets. I found some perfect tiny yellow miniatures that are packed full of flavour. I sliced these babies up, added some fresh herbs, salt and pepper, tossed them with capers in a light vinaigrette and served them as both a salad and a topping for a puffed pastry tart. Puff pastry is not a difficult thing to work with. You buy it frozen in your grocery store and let it thaw out a couple of hours before you roll it out. Don’t have a rolling pin? Use a wine bottle.
In this heat I like to serve chicken drummettes as nibble finger foods. This version I divided the wings into 4 groups and mixed different rubs for each pile. Then, I just baked them all in the same oven at 350 F or 175 C for 45 to 50 minutes. The baby drums are perfect hot or cold. You can use your favourite marinades for the chicken. I used pesto for one of the marinades, spicy hot curry for another, maple syrup and ancho chili powder with lots of black pepper for the third variety and some sun dried tomato paste with balsamic vinegar and mustard for the fourth flavour. Go wild with the combinations but don’t use too many ingredients or the taste gets lost.
I hope this summer weather holds for a bit. Canadians are an entirely different race of people in the warmer season than they are in those colder darker wet months.

Happy Canada Day Eh?

Every patriot loves his home land. I lived abroad for 20 years and every July 1st a bell would go off in my mental files. Bling. Canada. This year MrD and I are celebrating the big day in Vancouver with guests. My much older and wiser brother, MrR and his charming wife, MsA, are visiting for 5 days from their frontier homeland estate back east in the northern wilds of Ontario.
Local artisan cheeses and breads served us as our breakfast celebration. Then we were off to the docks on Hornby Street to catch a ferry to Grandville Island for a quick shop before the crush of tourists arrives. It is perfect July 1 weather, too cold for a mass of tourists. It doesn’t take me long to get what I need from the market. I have a mental list of what I want and where to get it and the crowds tend to part and give me room. Today I was shopping for the last of the fresh wild morels in season. I imagine you are tired, my silent reader, of my morels as much as you might be tired of my morals. MrD will not be sorry when I stop feeding him these tasty fungus treats. But MrR and MsA love morels as much as I do, so they are getting them at every meal.
Tonight I am serving wild cold smoked salmon rolled up with goat cheese and morel puree for the appetizer. MrD is a teeny bit tired of salmon, goat cheese or morels so he is getting wild boar pancetta with some pecorino cheese. MrR and MsA don’t eat pork so things all work out balance wise. To go with my Trophy H Canadian theme menu for tonight’s meal the main course will be braised Alberta beef short ribs in a maple syrup adobo sauce. The sides to serve nestled beside my ribs will be snow peas, smashed fireworks red potatoes and of course morels. Desert will be some of my Trophy H hand baked fig and maple baklava. Then we all head down to the sea shore to watch the fireworks.
We all have an early flight to the Yukon in the morning to continue the festivities. I will update next time with news of our northern journey but in the mean time here are today’s recipes.
Smoked Salmon Rolls.
Layer 8 - 10 smoked salmon slices on plastic wrap.
Spread an even mixture of goat cheese and morel mushroom pate over the salmon layer leaving a half inch of salmon on the long side. Roll up the salmon into a tight roll and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before slicing.
Beef Short Ribs.
Coat generous sized cuts of beef short ribs with a morel BBQ sauce and put them in a slow cooker. Cover with a splash each of Soy sauce, Worcestershire, apple cider vinegar and about ¼ cup of maple syrup. Cook on low for 4 hours.
Cut small stars on opposite sides of some small new red potatoes and boil until fork tender. Cool and then gently smash into flattened ovals with the stars on each of the flat sides. Fry these in hot olive oil or duck fat until brown and crispy.
Saute some sliced morel mushrooms in a little butter with salt and pepper.
Steam snow peas in their shell. Serve the potatoes, mushrooms and peas as the sides for the ribs.
I made my Trophy H secret recipe fig and maple baklava for desert because I am the Trophy H. You, my silent reader, don’t have to go to all that much work.