MCAT Celebration

Yesterday Kristi wrote her MCAT.  She has been studying for months and I figured the least I could do is make sure she could decompress with a nice meal and a great bottle of wine.  On the menu was salad with red leaf lettuce, cherry tomatoes and radishes;  homemade lasagna with spinach noodles and layers of tomato sauce and bechamel; Burnt Butter Logan Berry Tart; and a bottle of 2008 Wild Goose Pinot Gris.













The salad was a no brainer.  Being tomato season I headed down to Sunwing Tomatoes and picked up some awesome red and yellow cherry tomatoes to throw in.  I also got some garlic and basil for the dressing.  The yellow cherry tomatoes are quite awesome because the seeds and the liquid surrounding them are green and they look amazing once they are cut.  I also threw in some radishes that I picked up at Moss St Market last week.

The lasagna I made earlier in the week and froze it.  Pasta dishes freeze really well in my opinion so it's great to be able to make things that take a while a head of time and then just pop them out of the freezer when you want to eat them.  So for this lasagna I had to make spinach noodles, bechamel sauce and tomato sauce.  Sounds easy and actually it is but very time consuming.  I think from start to finish it took me about 3 hours.  For me one of most fun things to do is add a little color to the pasta.  Everyone is always impressed and it is so easy.  Take your favorite pasta recipe (for me it's 1.5 cups flour 2 whole eggs and one egg yolk) and add in about a cup of spinach that has been blanched while you are mixing the dough together.  Make sure you squeeze out as much of the moisture that you can though because you don't want to add in a bunch of liquid to your pasta.  I also think it's a good idea to chop it up a little first before you put it in.  It breaks up while you kneed it but it can't hurt to give it a head start.  

 

For dessert I made a Brown Butter Logan Berry Tart.  Logan berries are what you get when you hybrid a raspberry and a blackberry so they pick up a little of the flavour of both.  I really like them and it's just something different and a little more interesting.  Plus went you can get them straight straight from the producer in sannich (Oldfield Orchards) you know they are as fresh as they come.  I used a recipe that I got off epicurious for this and it worked out quite well with the exception of the pastry.  If you know of a good pastry recipe use that and skip the one they give you.  Still I have to give this recipe the thumbs up.  The nutty flavour of the brown butter goes really well with a tart berry like raspberry's, logan berries or blackberries.  

In the end Kristi's test went well and dinner was great.  We both ate way to much and will be working on that tart for the next few days. 

   

Welcome to The Island Kitchen

Welcome to The Island Kitchen.  I've been living on Vancouver Island now for about 6 years and since the moment I arrived one thing has stuck with me.  The Island has some of the best food I have ever tasted.  Almost everything grows here and the local farmers have done one hell of a job showcasing that variety.  From the berries at Oldfield Farms, to the beautiful heirloom tomatoes at Sunwing Tomatoes, and the fresh caught seafood at Finest at Sea.  Any day of the week you can find an abundance of fresh local produce and it sends your imagination wild.

I'm by no means a brilliant cook.  I don't even profess to be that good, it's just hard to mess up such great ingredients.  The purpose of this blog is to feature Vancouver Islands best, from restaurants to the food I (try to) cook.  I hope you enjoy reading about the food as much as I enjoy eating it :)