Chefs harvesting for their competition at the Chefs To The Field event last Sunday.

Happy Friday everyone!

Cheers,

Jackie.

One my favourite food bloggers (Heather at Diary of a Fanatic Foodie) often posts beverage recipes. I enjoy some of daring creations, both of the alcoholic and non-alcoholic varieties. A few months back she posted about her “Perfect Spring and Summer Drink” – a lemonade/iced tea combo accented with basil and mint.

© 2009 Bakergirl Creations

It was the combination of everything that really appealed to me. It sounded so refreshing. So at the first opportunity that I was hosting some people over for dinner I thought I would bring it out, and every other time we’ve had company, I have made it. It’s evolved a little from Heather’s rendition. But isn’t that what cooking, baking and creating should be about? Finding something you like and really making it yours?

If you are looking for something refreshing, easy to make, and still impresses, make a pitcher of this and keep it in the fridge, the flavours really come together overnight, so be sure to let it mingle.

Ingredients:

3 peach tea bags I used the Lipton White Tea with Mango and Peach Flavours
2 pomegranate tea bags
2 cups boiling water
1 can lemonade, pink or yellow, doesn’t really matter
2 handfuls torn mint
8 basil leaves
½ tsp grated fresh ginger (approximate)
2 lemons, washed and juiced Keep the carcass of the lemons as you will add these to the pitcher for more flavour
2 Tbsp real Maple Syrup
1 bottle (750 mL) sparkling soda water Adds a nice fizz to the drink

Directions:

1. Steep tea for a good 5-8 minutes in boiling water, remove and cool tea in fridge.

2. Once tea is cooled, in a pitcher combine all ingredients except for the sparkling soda water, mix. If you have the time, refrigerate at this point

3. Once you are ready to serve, pour in the soda water. Serve and enjoy!

At the start of the Summer I was hired to shoot food photography for a pretty great book. You may recall that I’m from Vancouver Island, and if you’ve read any of my blog posts before, you know that I love making food look delicious on camera, to say the least.

So, when the chance came to shoot the food for a Comox Valley based book that promotes local chefs, local food, and the people who live on the Island that grow and produce this food..’Sign me up’ I said!

Here’s the cover and some shots from the book…I hope you enjoy them.

The book is available for purchase on the North Vancouver Island Chefs Association website.

That’s right, my Saturday was total and utter geekery…nerdiness…dorkiness…whatever word you prefer to use, that’s what my day was. And it was awesome.

Where was I, you ask? Vino Camp & Cheese Camp.

Let me first say on what level the day deserves this title, or ‘levels’ I should say. First, there was wine. A lot was organic, free from herbicides and pesticides and chemicals. Many were local, and most were very tasty. It was swirled, smelled, drank and discussed about.

Then there was cheese. Goat cheese, blue cheese, comte, brie - all of which, except for the blue in my opinion, were also very tasty (others were serious fans of the salty and savory taste of the blue). Don’t get me wrong, though it makes for the prettiest pictures, blue is just not my kind o’ cheese.

And then there was the third level of geekiness - the social media kind. Seriously, somebody organizing this event understands us nerds, understands how to get us all out to eat cheese and drink wine, and how to encourage us log the entire experience from start to finish. They give us wine and cheese, we drink, eat, and pretty much work the entire time tweeting, texting, photographing, blogging, and video blogging the deliciousness of it all while they sit back and watch. Er, eat and drink. Smartie pants.

Job well done to all who organized this event, I’m already looking forward to next year.

Happy Friday everyone. Below is the first guest post from Shannon at Bakergirl Creations. Get ready to have your blueberry and sweet tooth cravings satisfied!

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I absolutely adore berries.  When we were little kids we had raspberry, blackberry and salmon berry bushes super close to our house and often went out down the lane with our old ice-cream buckets and foraged for that night’s desserts.

Blueberries bring blue lips, fruit tarts, delicious pies, scrumptious scones and anything else I can throw them into!  They are such a healthy choice food: anti-oxidants, nutrients, vitamins and anti-aging properties, you really can’t go wrong can you?  Living in the Pacific Northwest blueberries are in full abundance right now.  In fact, we actually have a blueberry surplus this year.  Many growers still have frozen stock from last year and as a result prices are super low right now.  Don’t get me wrong, in today’s economy I wouldn’t wish anyone ill with their business ventures, but at the same time, yay for low prices!

And so, cheap blueberries and a tub of Mascarpone cheese that needed to be used in the fridge and this tasty-tasty tart was created.  To be honest, it was a crap shoot.  I had this idea to combine the flavours of the cheese and blueberries with a shortbread crust that I had been meaning to try from the Joy of Baking website.  It worked!  Almost like a blueberry, maple infused cheesecake…so yummy.  And so simple (though a little messy!).  If you are up for a blueberry delight, I highly recommend this one.

photo: © Bakergirl Creations

Ingredients:
Crust
1 recipe of Shortbread Tart crust from the Joy of Baking
(I found this dough to be insanely soft! Two solutions: chill it for about 10 minutes after you make it, and before you put into your tart pan, or really flour your hands to help keep the dough in place.  Also, it is important to note that this makes more than enough dough for a 9 or 10 inch tart, it will also result in 3-4 muffin sized tarts)

Cheese Filling
1 X 478 g tub of Mascarpone Cheese
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/8 cup maple syrup
1 Tbsp Vanilla
juice of 2 limes
1/2 cup whipping cream

Berries + Glaze
2 pints fresh blueberries
2 pomegranate tea bags
1 cup water
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch

Directions:
1.    Preheat oven to 325 F.
2.    Prepare tart according to directions.  Chill.
3.    Blind bake the tart (original recipe didn’t call for this, but I found it helped)
4.    Cool tart crust completely.
5.    Combine all of the cheese filling ingredients, except the whipping cream, in a large bowl.  Whip together with a hand held mixer for a minute until well combined.
6.    Add whipping cream and combine.  It will take another minute of whipping to thicken the cream in the mixture.
7.    Pour mixture into cooled tart shell and with spatula smooth.
8.    Spread blueberries on top.  You can stop here, or you can make the glaze to add the “finished” feel. Refrigerate.
9.    To prepare the glaze, in a saucepan, boil water.  Remove from heat and add teabags, allow to steep for a few minutes.
10.    Remove tea bags and return saucepan to heat.  Add sugar and stir together until sugar is dissolved. If you have a few spare berries, you can crush them in with a potato mixture and it would add even more colour to the mix.
11.    Combine cornstarch with 2 Tbsp water, whisk together to make a slurry.
12.    Whisk slurry into the tea and sugar mixture, allow to thicken.
13.    Remove from heat, allow to cool a little.  Using a pastry brush, paint the top of your tart until fully covered.

Serves 8.

photo: © Bakergirl Creations

This past Sunday we hopped on our bikes like good little environment conscious Vancouverites and peddled down to the first Gastown Farmers Market. Little did I know I would get a lesson in a food I thought I knew well enough.

The subject: heirloom tomatoes

The teacher: Michael Allen from Garden Back to Eden

Seriously I had no idea there are so many different varieties of heirlooms, nor that each has their own name. And not just ordinary names. Names like The Black Price. Green Zebra. Striped German. And my favourite: Heart of Compassion. C’mon, these are poetic! Who names a vegetable, a food of any kind, Heart of Compassion? These kinds of names seem to suit incredibly valuable things with a rich history that needs to be protected. Or things that have a long lineage, traceable to all corners of the globe! Not…tomatoes??!!

But just you hold your horses for one moment my student, heirloom tomatoes are in fact from royalty (the seeds from The Black Prince were brought to England from Russia by an heir to the throne, so I was told); they do have lineage traceable back as early as the 1800’s from Belgium, Germany, Russia, the list goes on; and the history behind where the seeds originally come from is often long stories about people leaving (or being forced to leave) their country with just the clothes on their backs, their families, and their tomato seeds. Amazing.

Gorgeous! Heart of Compassion (foreground) and Green Zebra (background).

Vintage Heirloom

What did they taste like, you ask? The Black Prince was a gorgeous purple-brown-deep red colour that was only more beautiful when sliced open, and was ridiculously sweet. Lots of seeds, thin skin. Heart of Compassion was, suitable to it’s name, in the shape of a heart and quite possibly the meatiest tomato I’ve ever had; it was solid tomato the whole way through, very few seeds and was as pink as a watermelon inside. I squished out some seeds from both these varieties and they’re drying on my counter top right now; I can’t wait to plant them next Spring (they’re an indeterminate and my garden definitely has vertical space!).

Your homework: Next Sunday go to the Gastown Farmers Market, find Michael at Garden Back to Eden and pretend like you know nothing about heirloom tomatoes. Ask for the what’s what of heirlooms and you’ll see with your own eyes the passion this man has for this gorgeous and tasty food. * Notetaking optional (I used the paper bag I took my 6 tomatoes home in).

Think that title is a little out there? Or totally intriguing? Wait till you see the food photography. And it won the book a pretty big compliment.

This year’s James Beard Award (coined “the Oscars of the food world”) for best cookbook photography went to the The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, by Heston Blumenthal. The photographer is Dominic Davies from the Netherlands. You can see images from the book at the link above, as well as some of Davies’ other work.

So…now that you’ve looked at the cookbook photography…what do you think? Obviously it knocked the socks off the Beard Award judges; did it knock your socks off too?