The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

Here’s a recipe that will make you feel a little fancy on a Tuesday night. I almost can’t believe I’m writing a post about artichokes as they were one of my most feared food items as a child. I’m not quite sure why anymore, I think it had something to do with a period in my life where my mother made them a lot, beyond that I can’t remember any details.

A few years ago after seeing baby artichokes make there way into Vancouver markets, I decided it might be worth giving them another shot. They are small and seemed like the perfect entry level artichoke to tackle as a former artichoke hater. Plus I had them once being served as part of an amazing antipasti platter and I completely fell in love with the way they  complimented everything both aesthetically and with their woodsy flavor.

These artichokes apart from the cleaning process are extremely simple to prepare. Really it’s just a few tablespoons of olive oil, lemon and any variety of strong hard cheese you have on hand. They are a perfect snack or accompaniment. I served these roasted as is but I suspect they would be fabulous if you had some kind of simple sauce like an aioli to dip them in. My behind is starting to look like an Easter ham so I decided to skip that part at least this time around.

I think Chicken Paillard might be the only chicken recipe where I can support using boneless skinless chicken breast. It’s inadequacies are well documented, but to put it in a nutshell, boneless skinless chicken breast has the power to turn even the most ardent meat lover into a vegetarian. You know that staunch type that would sooner do something incredibly barbaric like open up a can of spam than eat something completely vegetarian? Or maybe like me you have some experience with someone in your life who repeatedly proclaims the unpalatable piece of petrified leather on his plate (in the name of cutting back on fat or something equally obnoxious) to be the best tasting piece of meat they’ve eaten in ages. Seriously, if boneless skinless chicken breast was the only available meat it would have even these people begging for a tofu turkey before you know it.

I’m not going to pretend there aren’t those out there who actually do like such things because experience has taught me that there are. Experience has also taught me that these aren’t the kind of people I want to cook for me. I have a tendency to think that they are members of that paradoxical group who view food solely as fuel (shudder). Or that other group that have some major psychological issues with a little thing called fat. Ok I know there are people who for serious health reasons limit their fat, but they are not the ones I come across in my life, so to be clear those aren’t the people I’m talking about.

This salad was one of those unplanned surprises. I had intended on using up all of the asparagus I had purchased from the Farmers market in my chicken salad and was a bit alarmed when I realized I would only need about half. It was one of those weeks where I had planned almost every meal and I absolutely hate the possibility of having something go to waste.

Fortunately, being the over-eaters that we are, it wasn’t particularly difficult to find a way to add an additional course into one of our meals. Never is come to think about it. This might be the reason why I am not fitting into my jeans the way I used to and have been wearing leggings almost exclusively for the past month. I might have to look into that. Oh well! Never trust a skinny cook, right?

I’ve been seeing all kinds of shaved asparagus salads over the past month and so I was immediately drawn to this when trying to think of creative ways to use up the rest of mine. Seriously though, this salad is another one of those extremely easy ways to impress. Aesthetically its almost perfect and will take you about 10 minutes to prepare. Also, the taste of raw asparagus, thinly shaved may even have the power to win over those asparagus skeptics in your life. I know it did with mine.

There really is nothing that pleases my hubby more than some open face sandwich action. It’s among his top 5 favorite things to eat and I would bet that it might actually be in his top 2. It doesn’t really matter what you put on the bread, as long as it’s piled high, it could be almost anything that you fish out of the fridge and it would still be “the best thing he’s ever tasted.” Men are funny.

Because of this we tend to eat bruschetta a lot or some other variety of sandwich fare. More often than not these also end up to be quite simple, as they are usually the result of random items left at the end of the week. After being away for a few weeks on vacation with my girlfriends, I was feeling generous and decided to plan his favorite and perhaps more lunch appropriate meal into our dinners for the week.

After 2 weeks of eating white bread for almost every meal, I haven’t been able to eat anything but fresh vegetables since I got home. I know it seams a bit simple to be posting a recipe as basic as an heirloom tomato salad, but this is what I’ve been eating so tough! Ha! No in all seriousness there were some amazing looking heirloom tomatoes at the farmers market this morning and I just wasn’t strong enough to leave without a few of them. For the most part I’m powerless against these, when I see some good ones I just can’t walk away.

This salad is so simple and really needs nothing aside from some ripe heirloom tomatoes and maybe a bit of olive oil and some sea salt. I added in the pea shoots and thought the sweetness really complemented these amazing subtle tomatoes, but of course they aren’t necessary.

As some of you may know I’ve been in Egypt for the past 2 weeks. Sneaky I know. Just when you think I’m at home making macaroni and cheese.

There really is no need to to state how amazing it was, so I thought that while I get myself straightened out and back in this timezone I would post a few pictures that for me highlight our trip.

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.