The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

Over the last few months Mac and Cheese has been the #1 internal blog search here on The Hunger Struck. It’s funny because I remember back in September when I first started this blog thinking about how much I was looking  forward to writing about my favorite Mac and Cheese recipes. I’m particularly fond of my history with this classic American comfort food, so this was the perfect excuse to make one of my absolutely favorite things.

Several years ago when I still lived in San Francisco, along with a few friends, I was a Macaroni and Cheese connoisseur. We would go to the cheese section of Rainbow and spend a ridiculous amount of time figuring out what cheese combination to try out  in our next experiment. Naturally some of these Mac and Cheese adventures were more refined than others, some were pure and simple while others seemed more like an experiment in excess and were as dirty as Mac and Cheese can get.

We were cheese obsessed and quickly mastered the art of the weekend brunch cheese plate, often followed by the weekend dinner grilled cheese, which would generally include niman ranch bacon and be washed down with cold glasses of makers mark. We were the very definition of hedonism, our behavior driven by our mutual love of cheese. That was the life, although I have reformed my behavior a bit since then, my devotion to cheese is stronger than ever and mac and cheese is definitely one of my most favorite ways to showcase it.

A few years back, long before this blog ever came to life, I was reading Molly Wizenberg’s Orangette and came across this post on Marcella Hazan’s Tomato sauce with onion and butter. I’d been searching around for a new Tomato sauce recipe as I was slowly becoming bored of my usual one, there just seemed to be something missing. I was finding myself adding so many extraneous ingredients that the sauce was no longer just a basic tomato sauce and I felt I needed to get back to basics, the way I remembered the tomato sauce of my childhood.

I was fortunate enough to grow up with a mother and father who at the end of each summer would make a trip to the Okanagan Valley in Southern BC, a dry desert region know for some of this provinces best fruit orchards and vineyards, where they would buy the most amazing field tomatoes at the peek of their season. These were the best tomatoes I had every tasted and this was long before you would ever see an heirloom tomato in the produce section of even the fanciest Vancouver markets.  I remember on many of these trips to the Okanagan eating these tomatoes like apples with just a little bit of salt and pepper, now if that isn’t uncharacteristic child like behavior I don’t know what is. They were just that perfect that they were even able to challenge a 7 year olds idea of what constitutes a great snack. In all truth I think I was a bit of an odd child where food was concerned. I would pretty much eat anything. Not much has changed.

I love gooseberries. It seems like only two years ago they were a rarity in Vancouver. I remember seeing tiny little baskets of them, with their fragile paper leaves priced outrageously and wondering if they would ever become economical enough to really consider using as I would other berries, for things like tarts, galettes and pies which require larger quantities.

They have come down a bit in price, though they are still quite expensive. You can now buy them locally in Vancouver in larger bushels, without their paper leaves, which I personally don’t care for as I think it takes away some of their charm even if it does save me sometime. But they aren’t for everyday, though I desperately wish they could be. I splurged a bit on these as I was in the market for something special for a dessert on mothers day.

Well finally here it is. I know, I made you wait for it. I can be mean like that sometimes. But it’s worth it right? Now all you have to do is get through this string of short sentences and you can have it. It’s really that easy. Well maybe not quite that easy, but seriously if you have an oven and 4 hours to spare you can easily pull this off. That’s the great thing about braising, aside from the addition of some flavors the oven does all the work for you and the best part is you get the credit.

Seriously though, I heard the words “best tacos I’ve ever had” escape my mothers lips when she tasted these. Granted we’re Canadian – not exactly known for our Mexican cuisine - but the woman has traveled all over Mexico and on top of that shes a great cook. So I would say that these come as close to perfection as any small Canadian home cook can get.

Want to challenge me Canadian home cooks? I’m totally up for that.

This is the second celery root slaw recipe I’ve written about. I guess it goes without saying that I’m quite fond of this root. While I’ve made it as I would any other slaw – a side to a summer BBQ type meal or just by itself -  these days I have an obsession with celery root slaw paired with tacos.

From fish to pork tacos there’s something about celery root that  is a refreshing change from your everyday cabbage slaw. Now don’t all you slaw lovers get your knives in a bunch over that last statement. I have nothing against cabbage based saws, in fact on the contrary I love them. I also think the pairing of cabbage and tacos is a great one, it is a classic after all but lets keep an open mind shall we?

I have to say I feel a bit silly posting such a basic recipe for salsa. But its a good one and one that I make often. Salsa is just so simple to make, and for me the fresh taste of tomatoes and cilantro are what make a great salsa stand apart from the rest.

Sure I’ve enjoyed my fair share of store bought salsa. My hubby prefers it to the home made variety so I actually eat it quite often. Recently though, due to an over abundance of fresh tomatoes supplied by my mother-in-law, I’ve found myself whipping up a quick batch for one quite often. Of course these impromptu salsas are at the mercy of whats available in my refrigerator on that particular day and are often quite simply tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice and some variety of spice.

This recipe however is what I make when I’ve actually planned to make salsa, generally for a special occasion or when I have dinner guests. It’s still simple but with the addition of fresh jalapenos, shallots, and a few other things it is absolutely delicious. Make sure to use the best tomatoes you can find!

Have you ever loved a condiment so much that you centered an entire meal around it? I do this quite often. Last week I was thinking about what I could make for mothers day and feeling inspired by all the food bloggers out there writing about their Cinqo De Mayo inspired meals, I thought I would make a Mexican inspired mothers day dinner centered around my favorite pineapple salsa recipe.

Cinqo De Mayo is not a big deal here in Vancouver and from what I’ve heard it isn’t really in Mexico either. I seem to remember people in my neighborhood celebrating in San Francisco though when I still lived there, so from what I’ve concluded this seems to be an American celebration. Honestly, I’ll use any excuse to have a Mexican themed dinner party!

Especially if I can work pork into the menu.

Oooh the pork!  Let’s just say it may have been the best slow cooked pork shoulder I’ve ever tasted. But you’ll have to come back for that recipe, cruel I know. I’ll keep this post short and sweet and will be posting the rest of our mothers day/ Cinqo De Mayo feast over the next week so make sure you cooooooome back.

The list of seasonal fruits and vegetables that are highly anticipated and enthusiastically discussed in our household are endless. We spend many an hour discussing what we are excited to make with certain ingredients throughout the year that when they finally show up in our farmers market we can hardly wait to get back home and bring all of those daydreams into reality.

A few weeks ago we found some beautiful first pick rhubarb at the market. The stalks were thick, a shiny dark red and I just knew that they would require very little to produce something amazing. But against my better judgment, after several months of anticipation I had my mind set on a rhubarb cake that I’d worked out in great detail and that’s what I was going the make, the end.

I truly wish I had been able to slow down for a moment or two to take a picture of this rhubarb because you really need to see it to understand the tragedy that followed. But alas, in that moment I couldn’t seem to find a second to pick up my camera and to tell you the truth I’m not great with process pictures. I was in the rhubarb cake zone and nothing was going to stop me. It’s taken me several weeks to get over this indecent enough to put these words down, and it’s not even the way the cake turned out that truly eats me inside, but the fact that I knew ( I KNEW!) this was not the rhubarb to use in such a high risk baking experiment.

Ugh, must everyday be a lesson in stubbornness for me?

There are some recipes that just take way longer than you think they will. This is one of them. Actually, I think I sort of knew it would take as long as it did, which is why I made it one evening when I was on my own. I was inspired by this eggplant dish that I love from a local Japanese restaurant here in Vancouver, but I was not trying to recreate it because lets be honest, that never works.

I’m generally of the persuasion that if there is a particular dish you love that a restaurant makes locally you should never try to recreate it yourself. There are some exceptions of course, I don’t know about you but doesn’t this sort of thing generally result disaster? I can’t tell you how many meals I’ve eaten with friends or family that have been disastrous attempts at recreating something.

Anyway, I’ll keep this short and sweet. If you have a few hours and are up for some slow roasted eggplant that it sweet and savory and might make you question that eggplant you had categorized as the best you’ve ever had, then this is your recipe. It’s not a fast recipe but it’s well worth the wait, consider yourself warned.