The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

I have been the laziest cook lately. For the last few weeks as this blog will attest I have had minimal time in the kitchen. Actually it hasn’t been intentional at all, I’ve just been so busy lately. We are desperately trying to find a house right now as we’ve out grown our one room apartment, so all of my free time has been spent doing this. Any of you Vancouverites who have been through this process recently will know how frustrating it is. I wont get started on the housing prices in Vancouver, they make me want to pull my hair out.

But hopefully we will find something soon because I’m sick of this and need more time to do the things I love again. AND my kitchen misses me. AND i just got a new set of amazing pots and pans. AND figs are in season!

I don’t know about you guys but I’m absolutely obsessed with figs. I wait not so patiently all year until its fig season. Once they start showing up we go absolutely fig crazy. Seriously we eat them on a daily basis. I thought I would share this extremely no brainer recipe quickly, its the first thing we do with figs each year and it may change the way you look at bruschetta forever.

Gougères come from the Burgundy region of France and are commonly served accompanying champagne. They are light savory pâte à choux cheese puffs and they are currently my favorite bite to serve dinner guests before a big meal.

I’m not a big Champagne drinker, though I’ll drink like I am one when it’s around. Why hold back when you can just go for it? I will say that several years ago, while still living in San Francisco I might have had a mini champagne (not the real stuff! ) drinking problem and would often find myself with a glass in hand on my balcony with certain enablers before noon most weekends. I was 25 and for us Canadians living in the US a $2 bottle of Champagne-like-stuff was as good as free. Do you have any idea how much booze is taxed in Canada? That same bottle would cost like $17 here. We had to get it while we could. Plus we needed all of the money we could to shop at this place aka heaven on earth.

I’ve been really into raw beets lately and its fitting for this to be the first documentation of that here, as I have served various dips with raw sliced yellow and red beets at least 3 times in the past 2 months. There’s just something so pretty about them as they can easily dress up your average everyday crudites platter and the taste and texture of a raw beet is something that pairs so nicely with my favorite dips.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always loved cooked beets in almost every way, including some of those questionable way-too-many-things-going-on soaked in miso gravy ways I come across so often in vegan restaurants. Not that I’m a huge fan of this sort of establishment, but I do find myself eating at one on occasion. Needless to say, I am a huge beet fan. So much that sometimes it’s hard to completely dislike a dish that clearly doesn’t work solely because there are beets in it. It’s almost like my subconscious wants to give bonus points just for including them, despite how badly the dish failed on a whole.

This is one of those seasonal recipes I’ve been wanting to make for quite a while. I can’t remember where I first saw these but I do remember thinking that I should have thought of this idea before. More specifically, this should have been my invention.

Does that ever happen to you?

For me this is almost a daily occurrence, which is something I probably shouldn’t be admitting. Instead of thinking wow that’s really creative of that person to think of that amazing use for eggshells, I think I can’t believe that wasn’t my idea. I also then decide that I will not be attempting this great idea in the near future. No what’s worse, is I generally follow this with a lengthy sulking period, during which time I refuse to attempt said great idea and put my best effort forward convincing myself that the idea is in fact pretty annoying.

Terrible I know.

We are finally back in our apartment after a month in boxes and I couldn’t be more happy. There’s still a lot of unpacking to do but we should be back to normal this weekend, which means that I will be posting more regularly again in the very near future.

Anyway, I made zucchini sticks! The healthy kind. And they rocked!

These little babies are a quick fix when there’s nothing much left in the kitchen. It’s also a recipe I find myself making quite often. For some reason it’s invariably the zucchini’s that are left in my fridge at the end of the week. I suppose  this is because historically I’ve never really been a huge zucchini fan. There’s something about cooked zucchini that’s never appealed to me and I can identify a few traumatic situations involving ratatouille as a child, or should I say extremely overcooked zucchini mush.

(Don’t worry Mom, I’m not referring to any meal you prepared. I promise.)

I guess that’s what turned me off, this is not a vegetable that lends itself well to long cooking times. I know people, there are a few exceptions to this and I assure you I’m just as much a fan of zucchini bread and other cake like zucchini applications. Obviously. I just find that for the most part, I prefer zucchini raw or just slightly cooked.