Spicy Fish Soup

Not being great with recipes I took what I remembers from a previous spicy fish soup I made and rolled with it.

My ingredients were:

- 2 stalks of celery
- 3 medium sized carrots
- 1 large onion
- 6 small potatoes (3 cups once diced)
- Half a green pepper
- 3 jalapeno peppers
- 2 cloves of garlic
(All of the above were purchased at Pete’s Frootique in the Saint John City Market.)
- 1.5 slices of thick bacon
- 3 cups of chicken broth
- 3 cups of crushed tomatoes
- A pound of chowder mix (from Lord’s Lobster)
- El Yucateco Hot Sauce
- and just to be fancy, some steamed Mussels

What did I do:

I chopped up my onion, celery and carrots.  I chopped up some bacon and started it in a saucepan at medium heat.  When it was getting crispy I added in my onion, celery and carrots.

 

After sautéing that for about 15 minutes I added in some diced garlic and my chopper jalapenos.

I then added in some chopped green pepper.

Realizing this saucepan was far too small I then heated a mixture of 3 cups of broth with 3 cups of crushed tomatoes in a larger pot.

And added my 3 cups of chopped potatoes.

After letting that do its thing for about 20 minutes I added my veggies (and bacon) into the broth pot.

 

I let that simmer for a half hour.

Simmering was boring so I steamed some mussels in the meantime. I rinsed some mussels and made sure they were fit to cook (i made sure the open ones closed when hit with some cold water)

Then I steamed them in the remainder of my 900 ml chicken broth (having already taken 750 mils for the soup) and a bit of water.

Once you have  a hot pan, steaming mussels takes all of 4 minutes, so I snacked on a few waiting for the soup to finish.

It did:

I served up a bowl of this soup with a few dashed of hot sauce and a few mussels to be extra fancy.

A Saturday afternoon well spent.

Sun Chips earplugs

The marketers of Sun Chips in Canada aren’t going to get rid of their noisy biodegradable bags yet.  They’re offering ear plugs to those who are offended by the bags’ crinkles.

Marketing via good deeds

I don’t have  a coffee maker and its rare that I get my caffeine fix with coffee, but I’m still impressed with Maxwell House’s Brew Some Good campaign which funds charitable organizations in an effort to create positive brand image by doing good.

Pepsi (the beverage’s diet variant is my caffeine ingestion tool) is using social media to promote their products and community works projects. I’ve been a Pepsi guy ever since my brother declared his love of Coke in our youth. I’m not drinking more cola due to this campaign, but I do think this project does reinforce Pepsi’s brand identity of being “less about brand” than other beverages.

I like the idea of companies spending on the community, even if its just a ploy to sell product, after all, if the ends don’t justify the means, what does?

Hot hot eats

I just downed a bowl of spicy chicken soup with more than a few dashes of PC Brand Chipotle hot sauce.

I love hot sauces and wanted share a few favourites with the world wide web.

I’m a big fan of Scorned Woman hot sauce – one that should be used sparingly to add heat to dishes.  This sauce is available locally at Cochran’s Country market.

The other that has a permanent place in my spice rack is Busha Browne’s Pukka Hot Pepper Sauce.  This one is available on grocery shelves and is a bit less reminiscent of an inferno than Scorned Woman, but definitely adds an interesting heat to food.

Seafood Chowder with Dill

With lobster prices low this weekend I decided to try my hand at making a fish chowder.  I followed (for the most part) Michael Smith’s Seafood Chowder with Dill recipe but used lobster instead of shrimp.

Reusable bags and useable customers

I’ve been using PC Green Bags a lot over the last year.  In fact I use these bags most places I shop – not just Superstore.  While I like “doing my part” for the environment, I wonder how genuine the environmental efforts of Loblaws are. 

Local fruit and veggie vendor Pete’s Fruitique has been charging for the use of plastic bags for a while now.  This seems like a genuine effort from a small shop in the City Market.  Of course their produce is shipped in from distance places – but still a small local business such as this can reduce waste and get brownie points from me.

Now Superstore has joined the pay-for-plastic segment of green-washed marketing.  I’m not sure if Superstore means it.  They are certainly reducing bag usage; last night I saw several people leaving the store carrying groceries stacked precariously in hand with no bags.

Still, I don’t know if I can respect this “green initiative” from a company that’s business model is to have multiple stores in the city with huge parking lots, high ceilings and every double-packaged food item the market requests.

I’m not the only cynic – Treehugger has an article with lines such as:

Selling a bag for 99 cents doesn't make you green; selling decent food at the peak of our short season to fill it does.

[ED: Interestingly the bags were half off this week making them unavailable for the new pay-for-plastic launch.

Maritime Beef: unique brand and product

I was listening to a discussion on the CBC about the need for a maritime beef brand. The beef industry in this region is suffering from being to small to compete with western Canadian producers and has had limited success emulating the western practices of grain feeding and using hormones to make big cows.

The proposal discussed on the CBC to help the ailing industry is to move away from trying to bulk up cattle and aim to create an organic or at least more natural beef product that would be branded as such. This beef could then be sold into markets looking for this type of product, including large European and east-coast US markets.

If the industry can afford to make the switch, this seems like it could be a good way for them to become more profitable in the future.

More fun in the kitchen

My fiance brought home a nice cut of beef from Cochran's Country Market, so we decided to do it justice and put some effort into preparation. I seared the meat on the stove top and cooked it with a sauce made of onions, hot sauce, mustard and some spices. Thinking highly of myself I made mashed potatoes with a similar mix of flavours. Thinking of myself higher still I photographed the meal and posted it on this rarely viewed blog.

Pad Thai

I made me fiancé Pad Thai this evening for Valentine's Day based on this recipe. I made a few substitutions and opted for no tofu, and it turned out very well.

Great Pizza Dough Recipe

I made a great pizza dough last night. The only alteration to the recipe from RecipePizza.com I made is that I added some tomato juice from a can of whole tomatoes in place of some of the water.

The homemade dough was topped with a similar sauce I made with a 16 ounce can of whole tomatoes that I blended with a clove of garlic, salt and pepper.

On top of the dough and sauce (there was sauce left over), I put some chopped canned artichokes, some diced red onion, a fist full of baby spinach, 4 thin slices of prosciutto, six slices of hot salami, a cup or so of grated farmer's cheese, some pan-fried chicken breast and a little more cheese.

I was pleased with the result and will be cooking my pizza HOT from now on - I was impressed with the golden crust that resulted from the 450 F baking temperature.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians. I went to a family dinner yesterday that was full of Thanksgiving goodies - including my homemade cranberry sauce.

A highlight of my Thanksgiving weekend has to be getting to see Iron Chef America: Battle Cranberry, featuring Giada de Laurentiis and Rachael Ray. There are a number of clips from the episode on YouTube. All sorts of sweet and savoury cranberry dishes.