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Saturday, December 14, 2013

Playing With Your Food

Sometimes, all it takes to take an special event up to eleven is a little creativity. This past session, the kids both advanced their belts in karate. In order to celebrate the event, that night's dinner was pushed a little further.
Blue Belt food
Orange Belt food for me and my spouse

Green Belt food
So it was crudite and homemade biscuits with barbeque sauce. Taking an inspiration from something happening around you and just adding a little twist goes a long way into celebrating the ordinary milestones and makes them memorable. If you have picky eaters, it also shows that you can have fun with food. 

You eat with your eyes first. Also, we got to use those cocktail picks...

Friday, December 13, 2013

Soy Sauce Dessert

My wife had an awesome idea the other night at supper. We were having some Chinese bakery buns and my son was trying soya sauce as a dip for them. He didn't like it and the puddle remained until the end of the meal.

For dessert, there were leftover meeting treats, petit fours from Patachou. We teased our son that if he didn't like the cut veggies or buns in the sauce maybe he should try dipping the booze soaked cake into it. It was too late as the cake was gone but my wife had an aha moment. (Not that Aha!)

Now the wheels are turning. Cookies and cake could definitely benefit from salty and slightly sweet sauce. Salted caramel brownies would be another solid choice. Maybe a flavour agent in icing or truffles.

In some ways, aged soya sauce has some similar characteristics to balsamic vinegar. There is a richness and umami depth that makes everything taste better. The only part of the flavour profile that is slightly difficult for some is the saltiness but salt is becoming quite normal in chocolate bars and caramels. I have even seen a recipe for salted creme caramel. I do hope she follows through on some of these ideas.

Just a quick aside, I recently read Maximum Flavor by the Ideas in Food people and it's on my Christmas list. If you go to their site, I have kinda cribbed their style of inspiration post for this one. So, if you like this style of post, go to the pros. Some of their ideas will change the way you look at inspiration and some will change the way you view recipes and food. At worst, you find out what they are thinking about today.