Salt cod fritters are Caribbean delicacies that I have been eating forever. My love affair with accras, so to speak, started when I was very young and my mother would make us accras during snack time. My mother, who was introduced to Caribbean food by Antillean friends when she was studying in France, had the full collection of a very popular cooking encyclopedia dedicated to Caribbean cuisine called Les Délices de la Cuisine Créole.
There are those days where your life looks like an episode of Chopped. You have a bunch of ingredients seating in your fridge and pantry that usually don’t fit together. Or at least, you don’t think they fit together. But you are stuck with these ingredients because you didn’t have time to go grocery shopping or you are too lazy to make a stop at the grocery store.
When the weather gets warmer, I usually hate to eat foods that are on the heavy side. During spring and summer, I prefer to eat lighter foods and less starch. That’s why, two years ago, I immediately fell in love with the idea of Zucchini pasta after surfing for new ideas on Pinterest. At first, I was skeptical because, for me, pasta normally meant made with flour and eggs. So I was certain that I wouldn’t like it. Then I tried it and I simply loved it. Since then, making Zucchini pasta is now part of my cooking habits.
Last Sunday, we went to Régine Café to have a girls’ brunch. Picking Régine Café was my sister’s idea because she had heard many positive reviews of the place and she wanted to try it. Quite honestly, it wasn’t a disappointing experience. In fact, it was a pleasant and savouring experience to say the least.
Whenever I go grocery shopping, I always return home with rotisserie chicken because I’m usually too exhausted to cook after an hour spent at the store wandering from alley to alley. In addition of acting as a troubleshooting option when you are too tired to cook a meal, rotisserie chicken can be added in almost every recipe. Whether it’s in salads, quiches, pizzas or pasta, rotisserie chicken can’t go wasted.
Last week, I made Pork and shrimps potstickers and as always I was left with a surplus of filling. Since I wasn’t planning to use the filling in the day that followed, I put it a freezer bag and store it in the freezer. And I forgot about it. Well, almost forgot about it. Since we were having friends coming over, I had to come up with ideas for appetizers to entertain my guests. I wanted to do something that looked fancy but wouldn’t require a lot of time to make or money to invest. So I thought to myself “Hmm why not just use the rest of the filling and deep fry some wontons with it?”
There is a category of foods that you know is bad for your health but you can’t deny yourself the pleasure of eating and enjoying them. And condensed milk is among those ingredients. Be honest, haven’t you ever had a spoon of condensed milk straight from the can? I know I have. And on numerous occasions because condensed milk is one of my many guilty pleasures.
Whenever you want to eat light, I will advise you to try to make poached chicken for lunch or dinner. Poached chicken can be used in various recipes from salads to sandwiches. And it’s easy to store until the moment you are ready to use them.
As a part of my Cinco de Mayo celebration, I made one of my favorite drinks i.e. Margarita. Who doesn’t like Margaritas anyway? There are many versions of Margaritas but my favorite one remains the classic Lime Margarita.
Happy Cinco de Mayo! For the occasion, I decided to celebrate Mexican food by making pork tacos with homemade tortilla. Even though it wasn’t my first time making tortillas on my own, it was my first time making them with Masa flour. Usually I make my tortillas with all-purpose flour, but this time I decided to try to make the classic corn tortillas. The taste wasn’t quite the same as the ones with all-purpose flour; however I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. I think the next time I will probably try to make a recipe with both masa flour and all-purpose flour just to see if there is a difference.
Rita's Notebook 