Chicken salad with arugula, oranges and almonds

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The chicken in this salad is deliciously crispy and caramelized because of the skin. We deboned chicken thighs prior to cooking, but kept the skin on. For some reason I cannot find thighs with skin but no bones - they seem to come either with or without both. If anyone knows where to get them deboned/skin on, please let me know! Until then I'll continue to do it this way - deboning's a bit of work, but well worth it for the flavour and crispiness.  

Chicken salad with arugula, oranges and almonds
Serves two
a couple of handfuls of arugula
one orange
a few artichokes from a jar
handful of almonds
two chicken thighs
dijon mustard
ponzu sauce (a Japanese citrus dressing)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Prepare the chicken by deboning the thighs, but leaving the skin on. Turn skin side up on the cutting board, and season the skin side with salt and pepper. Heat a frying pan on medium heat. Do not add oil because you will be frying the chicken in the fat from its own skin. When the pan is hot, add the chicken thighs skin side down. Let them cook about two-thirds of the way up, until they curl up and start to brown and crisp up. While they are cooking, season the other side of the thighs now facing up in the pan.

When the skin side is cooked, turn the thighs over and cook the other side for another five minutes or so. When cooked, remove from pan and place on a plate to rest. Slice each thigh into pieces that you put on top of the salad.  

Prepare the salad by washing and drying the arugula, peeling and slicing the orange, and halving the artichoke quarters. Roughly chop the almonds and lightly toast in a frying pan. Tip the almonds onto a cutting board to cool as soon as they have finished to prevent them from browning further in the pan. Put all of these ingredients in a big salad bowl.

 Prepare the dressing by mixing a little bit of Dijon mustard with a couple Tablespoons of ponzu sauce, and add olive oil to make into a dressing consistency. Pour over salad and toss. Top with chicken slices and serve.

Rustic potato rösti for breakfast - yay weekends!

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This is my weekend morning potato specialty. It's a rustic rösti adapted from Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie, the best recipe I've found for this Swiss specialty. It takes a bit of time, but so do most good things in life, so I don't mind.

Rösti is of Swiss origin where the farmers of yesteryear used to eat it for breakfast, according to Wikipedia. Thankfully it has since been adopted worldwide by potato lovers like my friend the Film Cricket, who first introduced me to rösti at Toronto's Marché Movenpick (now Richtree), where they serve it with sour cream and chives. So yummy. Now when I make it for breakfast, we eat with eggs, bacon and toast. Equally scrumptious.

Potato rösti
serves two

one russet potato
one clove garlic
one sprig rosemary (whole)
olive oil
butter

Preheat the oven to 400. Wash and peel the potato. Top and tail it, and cut it in half. Cut each half into thin matchsticks. Rinse the rosemary sprig. Peel the garlic clove (I smash it with the flat of my chef's knife so that it cracks a bit but is still essentially whole).

Heat up a non-stick, ovenproof frying pan. Add a splash of olive oil and heat. Melt a tablespoon of butter into the olive oil. Add the potatoes, the garlic clove and the rosemary sprig. Stir in the pan for 10 minutes until softened and starting to colour.

Put in the oven for 25 minutes until crispy and golden. I check it after this, and sometimes cook it maybe 10 minutes more.

Herbed goat cheese balls with crostini

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Squeaky and Calimocho had a big party last night, the kind where you end up drinking in the hallway with strangers and bond over games of "Who's your gross-celebrity crush?" (Rules: They can't have ever been a heartthrob material and you have to imagine yourself kissing them.) I pondered this with a wonderful mixture of curlers, writers, engineers and advertisers. S and I brought this tasty appetizer, which is a recipe from Giada de Laurentiis's Everyday Italian cooking show. I bought her Extra Easy Italian DVD set over Christmas and have been enjoying watching her again. Since we discontinued cable I've been missing her shows, so I hope they keep releasing more.
 
Ingredients
one baguette
one large log of snow white goat cheese, soft or semi-firm
zest of one lemon
a handful each of fresh herbs (your choice, but I used rosemary, curly parsley, oregano and thyme)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Crostini 
Slice a baguette on the diagonal, then place slices on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 10 minutes.  

Cheese balls
Finely chop all of the herbs and place in a bowl. Add a sprinkling of salt and some coarsely ground pepper, and the zest of one lemon. Stir well. Form little pinches of the goats cheese into balls with your hands and roll each ball in the herb mixture to coat. Once all the cheese balls are rolled, arrange them in a little pyramid in the centre of a serving platter, and place the crostini on the outside. Drizzle the cheese balls with olive oil and serve.

Domaine des Cotes d’Ardoise

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Domaine des Cotes d’Ardoise is a beautifully landscaped winery that is as much a celebration of art as it is of wine. We sampled some tasty whites and a peppery red that I also liked, and purchased a bottle of the Seyval Carte D'Or (on the far right in the photo above).

The grounds are lovely. There's art for sale on the walls of the building where you do tastings and buy wine. There's also a small, modern freestanding kitchen (for a very lucky chef!) next to a pond with beautiful plants and sculptures in the water.

We took a long walk about the grounds and made a nice discovery. Scattered about the vineyard every few feet are different sculptures by various Quebec-based artists. Called Nature et Creation, it's the province's largest outdoor sculpture exhibition and the winery hosts it every year.

Here are some photos of my favourite sculptures. Quirky and interesting and so very French!


A cute family


Half a violin that is very eighties meets Art Deco


Adorable metal tree sculptures that reminded me of dainty bonsai trees


The lovely front door with a sign commemorating the winery's 30th anniversary


Wandering the grounds to meet the next great sculpture


Domaine des Cotes d’Ardoise
879, rue Bruce, (Road 202)
Dunham (QC) J0E 1M0


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Tel: 450-295-2020

Les Trois Clochers, a winery in Quebec's Eastern Townships

It is very hard to pick a favourite vignoble in Quebec's Eastern Townships because they all have their unique charms. However, if I have to pick just one, it would be the winery Les Trois Clochers.

The boutique is in an old barn, full of lovely wines and sweetly furnished. The grounds are very secluded and overlook three churches in the nearby city of Dunham, Que.

It is so peaceful and rustic as you can see from the photos. The grounds had little treasures dotted here and there, like an old barrel, a weathered wooden door and a piece of long-forgotten farming equipment. We had lunch on a picnic table under a tree. For a while, we were the only living things there, with the exception of the owners' two turkeys, who were quite nice company!



Like many of the wineries in this region, this one is about 30 years old. It's first vines were planted in 1986. We had a tasting and bought a bottle of their blanc boisé, a dry oaked white, which was very light and fresh, and made from Seyval grapes.

We drank it later with my family and some nice cheeses bought on the same road trip: one from Ferme Diodati just outside of Montreal, and another from Saint-Benoît, an abbey in the Eastern Townships whose monks produce their own cheeses. (More on these extraordinary places later.)



Vignoble Les Trois Clochers
341, rue Bruce RR 3
Dunham, QC J0E 1M0
450.295.2034

Wine tour of Quebec's Eastern Townships

Time for a long-overdue feature on our trip to Quebec's Eastern Townships, where we visited an abbey that makes cheeses and ciders (St. Benoît), and toured several of the region's wineries (more on those later). The photo above shows some of the wines we bought during our visit. We stayed at À La Maison Campbell, a B&B run by Jean and Danielle Goyer, who make delicious, delightful breakfasts. We also ate at several nice restaurants, our favourite meal being mussels and fries at La Table Alain Roger. It's a place that specializes in, well, mussels and fries! I have never tasted mussels like this before. So much flavour and such a high quality. The fries were great too, and came with several different kinds of mustard and mayonnaise for dipping.

Pasta primavera with roasted vegetables

I made a big batch of this on a Sunday afternoon, and we ate it for lunch all week long. It's a nice treat after a morning at work, plus you save so much money not buying lunches every day. The trouble is you have to resist eating it the night you make it! This recipe is adapted from one by Giada de Laurentiis in her cookbook Everyday Italian, long a source of pasta inspiration for me.

Pasta primavera with roasted vegetables
serves six to eight

one acorn squash
one red pepper
one yellow pepper
two carrots
two zucchini
one onion, sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp herbes de Provence
pinch of chili flakes
2 tsp each salt and pepper
1 lb penne pasta
20 grape tomatoes, halved
1 cup grated parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Cut the first five vegetables into a large two-inch dice. Toss the vegetables and the sliced onions with the olive oil, herbes de Provence, chili flakes, and salt and pepper in a large, high-sided baking dish.

Transfer half of the veggies into a second baking dish.

Bake both trays of vegetables for about 25 minutes, stirring after the first 10.

Meanwhile, cook the penne according to package directions in a large pot of salted water. Reserve a cup of pasta water for adding to the final dish.

In a big glass bowl, toss the pasta with the roasted vegetables and enough of the pasta water to moisten. Season with more salt and pepper, and stir in the grape tomatoes and grated Parmesan.

Cover the bowl with cling wrap and put in the fridge for lunches all week long :)