In My Kitchen: October 2022

One quarter of my fellowship year in Toronto has passed, isn't that just crazy? September was an intense month - S' mother came to visit us, my dad decided last minute to fly over from Australia, and then S went back to France for the first academic semester. We are back to long distance mode which is like a throw-back to the previous season of our relationship!   

The Zucchini Dinner

I love themed dinners and the idea of using one vegetable as the star ingredient... We asked S' mother to choose her favourite vegetable and she chose zucchini. We had a lot of fun planning out this special menu...  

Try asking a mathematician how many zucchinis one needs for a zucchini dinner!

These beautiful zucchini flowers were found by my friend at some gourmet shop somewhere.. 

The first course was my own sourdough, accompanied by slow roasted zucchini with balsalmic glaze. These were mouth in the melt tender and succulent after being roasted for 1.5 hours at low heat. 

The second course was the floral course. We made zucchini roses with thin slices of zucchini, and stuffed some zucchini flowers with a buffalo mozzarella and feta filling. The basil over the top came from our balcony garden.  

The third course was tofu and zucchini balls along with zucchini pickles. I've learned that pickles are such a quick addition to any meal, the tartness and crunchiness really lightening whatever you eat.  I would have finished with a zucchini chocolate cake but both S and his mum are not into sweets, so we had some fruit instead (not zucchini!)

Other adventures in the kitchen... 

Some extraordinary heirloom tomatoes we got from the Niagara region ... 

While the parentals were visiting, we all got together to make dumplings. It was a fun family activity and I can see why it's such a great Chinese family tradition. 

S and I made these fresh pork mooncakes on the last day he was in Toronto for the Mid Autumn festival. While most mooncakes people know about have a sweet sticky filling, I'm from Shanghai where we eat pork filled mooncakes.  

We made this short crust for the mooncakes, which was super interesting to make - two doughs incorporated together and laminated, kind of like a rough puff. 

This was not technically in my kitchen, but I just couldn't leave it out - What a lobster mountain! The one behind it is a crab mountain, and the fries at the bottom are the best, so umami and so crunchy... 

I had no idea that there were these grapes called Concord grapes in Ontario. E made a cake with them and also made a kind of grape confit to go over the top. It was our last musical reunion for a while until S comes back.. our little group has been having a lot of fun playing through the middle Beethoven string quartets. 

And well, it just wouldn't be my IMK without a loaf of sourdough, I'm experimenting with the scoring patterns again... 

This month's curveball... 

Ta-da! I finished this jigsaw just before the parentals got here. It was so much fun to do! I wanted my first jigsaw in Canada to be a Canadian one, and this one is of an Indigenous totem pole. I'm taking a break from jigsaws now since we don't have enough space for me to spread out (I was doing it on the dining table).  

I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings who hosts the monthly In My Kitchen series - thanks Sherry and have a good month everyone!