Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Mache salad with Manchego, pine nuts and tortilla strips

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.
I was on my honeymoon in New Zealand, where we had some lovely meals, including a lamb Greek salad that is, I think due to the quality of the meat, the best Greek salad I've ever had. And it was at an English pub?

Also, have you tried fried taro root? Or what I think may be my favorite flavor of ice cream EVER, Hokey Pokey? The candy is good, but not nearly as good as the ice cream...

(Or seen Hobbiton? I hate to gloat, but OMG, if I could legally show you pictures of the fully dressed sets for "The Hobbit" that we saw, I totally would. Here's a taste, from someone else who can get in trouble instead of me.)

More importantly for you, while we were gone, most of the snow melted and the local farms and greenhouses started churning out the spring greens.
This week, I ordered some mache from Idaho's Bounty. I think I've had it in restaurants before, but never purchased it until now -- and apparently, according to a Google search I just did, I'm a little behind the times. It's a vaguely sweet, vaguely nutty leaf, but delicate in flavor, with not a lot of green leaf per stem, at least in the early-season version I got today.
I'm not sure if this is fortunate or not, but mache apparently can't be machine harvested, so its cost is usually much higher than other lettuces, but most of Idaho's Bounty's greens are a bit higher in price than grocery store greens anyway because they're hand-harvested, so I think I came out on the good side of that equation.

I started by looking up recipes for mache on Epicurious, my go-to site for recipe exploration. None of them had the mache heated, which after having a salad of it, I understand. It'd just disintegrate if you tried to wilt it, I think. Most of the recipes paired the mache with a fat (olive oil, avocado, pancetta, etc), and something with texture (green apples, Bing cherries, pistachios, etc).

So I threw some olive oil and a sprinkling of powdered chipotle in a fry pan, cut two small (stale) tortillas into 1/4" slices, and browned them in the medium-heat oil -- though in retrospect I should have let them brown a bit more -- then let them dry on paper towels. I trimmed the greens and tips off the mache (ending with probably about three to four very loose cups) and put them in a bowl, added a few tablespoons of pine nuts. Incidentally, is anyone else incredibly disappointed by the high price of pine nuts this year?
I then shaved some Manchego cheese (from Costco!) on top, drizzled on a tablespoon or two of the Persian lime olive oil (oh, nom nom nom) from Stonehouse California that we got for our wedding, and ground some fresh peppercorns over all of that. About half the fried tortilla strips topped it off, and voila...

This salad was surprisingly satisfying, I think primarily because of the oil, nuts and tortillas, but also delicious, thanks to the previously mentioned ingredients plus the mache, which stood up quite well to what I layered all over it.

(Above, the first image is my salad; the second is one I found on Google images, and I'm probably stealing it from someone. Sorry about that.)

Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Mache salad with Manchego, pine nuts and tortilla strips

Michelle's Kitchen in Toronto - Hearts of Palm and Heirloom Tomato Salad with Feta

As spring - and all the gorgeous produce that starts to emerge with it - begins to unfurl, I'm starting to find some of my favorite ingredients at my local mega mart again. I had two joyous discoveries last year; the first was the amazing heirloom tomatoes at the Granville Island Farmer's Market in Vancouver and the other was a product I had heard of, but never sampled myself - hearts of palm; which are derived from the inner core of the growing bud from some palm trees and has a vaguely asparagus or artichoke heart-like taste to it.

Hearts of Palm and Heirloom Tomato Salad

1/2 - 1 can hearts of palm sliced into rounds

2-3 cups sliced heirloom tomatoes (or the freshest tomatoes you can find)
1/3 cup Light Feta Cheese, crumbled (I used shredded store-bought)
1/4 - 1/3 cup good quality balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup good quality olive oil
salt to taste

Put hearts of palm and tomatoes on your serving platter. Drizzle over the oil and vinegar and sprinkle with feta and salt.

Yields 4-6 servings

I had a version of this wonderful salad at a family dinner once, so I was inspired by some beautiful heirloom tomatoes I found at the market and the can of hearts of palm I was saving for just such an experiment. I left the proportions fairly loose in case you like more of one thing and not the other or if you are not as big on vinegar as I am!

Michelle's Kitchen in Toronto - Hearts of Palm and Heirloom Tomato Salad with Feta

Sasha's Kitchen: The Flavors Of Napa Valley (A Foodbuzz Contest)

When I decided to enter the contest to report on the finals of the Foodbuzz / San Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef Competition in beautiful Napa Valley, the answer was easy for me.  Napa Valley is my favorite culinary spot in America, both because of the breathtaking natural beauty of its surroundings and because it is a foodie paradise due to its incredible local produce.  Napa Valley is a perfect place, given its rich culinary tradition and lovely scenery, for chefs from around the world to compete to present the most incredible and delicious dishes.  I couldn't think of a better spot on earth to inspire such culinary creativity.  I love watching chefs create their masterpieces, like works of art.  I would love to be there to watch the challenge of so many superb chefs.

Thus, am first presenting some San Pellegrino sparking mineral water with the flavors of Napa Valley, in this post.    I decided to pair the San Pellegrino with the Meyer lemon, Napa's distinctive lemon.  The Meyer lemon is thought to be a cross between a regular lemon and a mandarin orange.  It has a sweeter, less acidic taste than the ordinary lemon, and is, in my opinion, quite a star in itself.  The combination of the Meyer lemon and sparking water dazzles.

Next, I added another dish that I grew to love in Napa.  This is going to sound weird, but trust me with this one and just try it.  When I visited Round Pond Estate in Napa Valley, where they make their own limited production olive oils (and wine too, by the way), I had a marvelous buffet lunch all using local Napa produce (the best on earth).  They served vanilla ice cream with their Blood Orange Olive Oil.  I was skeptical at first.  Ice cream and olive oil?  Weird.  Bizarre.  And also amazing, especially with the blood orange complement.  Thus, this dish will alway be part of what I consider to be the distinctive flavor of Napa Valley.

To sum things up, I would love the opportunity to report live from the Almost Famous Chef Competition, and I'll have a glass of San Pellegrino, garnished with a wedge of Meyer lemon by my side, along with two of my other loves: food and writing.

Sasha's Kitchen: The Flavors Of Napa Valley (A Foodbuzz Contest)

Michelle's Kitchen in Toronto : Valentine's Special - Steak with Scallion and Barbeque Sauce

This weekend, I was having a major craving for red meat so I thought to myself: "What could be more perfect for Valentine's Day than a romantic steak dinner for two?" And so, the experiment began! I started with a top quality organic Ontario strip loin steak from my favorite organic butcher here in Toronto; Sanagan's Meat Locker in Kensington Market where everything is always organic and local. To my mind, a good quality steak is key to making it perfectly. I used the whites of the scallions that were left over from my great Fish Fragrant Eggplant experiment that I previously posted, however you could use the whole scallion, a sweet onion or a shallot if you prefer. I bought a steak that was about 8-12 oz and I found that I only needed half for myself along with a green salad, however you could certainly double the recipe if this is not enough for you and your guest. This is a nice recipe for those of us who do not have a barbecue, or live in sub-zero climates as all you require is a pan and an oven!

Steak with Scallion and Barbeque Sauce

For the steak:
1 8-12 oz strip loin steak
2 tbsp barbeque sauce (I used Gourmet Original Diana Sauce; my favorite!)
1 tbsp pomegranate barbeque sauce (I used President's Choice amazing Memories of Damascus sauce but you could omit this and add more Diana sauce)
1/2 - 1 tsp coriander powder
2 tsp olive oil
salt to taste


Rub the steak with the sauces and coriander powder. Ideally, allow to marinate for 30 minutes to an hour. Preheat your oven to 375F. Heat your pan with the oil so it's smoking hot. Just before you add the steak to the pan, sprinkle with salt to taste. Sear the outside until the steak has nice colour, but only flip once. Take steak from the pan and put in the oven on a foil-covered sheet pan, keeping the heat on in the pan as you will be making your sauce while the steak cooks. I cooked it another 8 minutes in the oven to get it to rare but you could try cooking it 10 minutes to medium rare or 12 minutes to medium-well.


For the sauce:
4 stems scallion whites (see my blurb about ingredients above)
1/4 cup red wine (I used Pelee Island Winery Merlot Reserve)
1/2 - 1 c chicken broth
2 tbsp barbeque sauce (again, I used Diana Sauce)
salt to taste


In the heated steak pan, add the scallions and cook until the rawness has just gone out of them but not burning them, about 30 seconds. Add the wine and allow the alcohol to burn off; scraping all the good steak flavour bits off the bottom of the pan while you do it. The alcohol is usually gone about 30 seconds to a minute after you start smelling the wine in the pan. To this, add the barbeque sauce and stir. Add the chicken broth and allow sauce to cook down to whatever consistency you want it. Adjust salt in the last minute or two of cooking as the broth has quite a bit of salt as well and you may not need more.

I added a nice green salad to my plate as well as my glass of Pelee Island Winery Merlot Reserve that I not only cooked with, but drank as well.


Gourmet Original Diana Sauce


Memories of Damascus Sauce


Pelee Island Winery Merlot Reserve

Michelle's Kitchen in Toronto : Valentine's Special - Steak with Scallion and Barbeque Sauce