Pops De Milk » Snack

Salsa

Pops De Milk — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:20:09 +0000

The word salsa could mean a type of Latin dance or the Spanish word for sauce. In both cases, it brings to mind spice and flavour, which this little dish has.

My mom once showed me how she made her salsa and I’ve since made a few variations of it. The main ingredients, in my opinion, are tomatoes, onions, and hot peppers. After that you’re free to add whatever you’d like, of course making sure that the flavours work well together but don’t be afraid to experiment. My mom adds dark chocolate pieces to her salsa mix.

In this batch of salsa I combined the following in a large jar:

5 tomatoes

1 white onion

2 jalapeno peppers

1 green bell pepper

1 head of garlic

the juice of a lime

a splash of vinegar

salt to taste

approx a tsp of cumin

approx a tsp of sugar

a handful of cilantro

All these ingredients can be blended together if you want a pureed consistency or you can simply dice everything for a more chunky feel. I like to do half pureed and half chunky.

If it’s too runny you can strain some of the liquid out but I would suggest saving that liquid for cooking purposes – it makes for a great meat or chicken tenderizer. It’s a good idea to let the mixture sit for a few days before tasting it as the flavours need time to mesh together. The longer it sits the better it tastes.

Quick sugar craving solution

Pops De Milk — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:10:32 +0000

Don’t worry, no one will judge you if you eat this sandwich:

Nutella

Peanut butter

Banana, sliced

Sandwich bread

Pans and Fries

Pops De Milk — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 21:21:13 +0000

Hello again! I am back after a very long blogging vacation. Today, after nearly a year of merely thinking about replacing our crappy teflon pans, we finally purchased an 8 inch de Buyer mineral pan. It was our first time at Nella Cucina near Bloor and Bathurst and the moment I stepped inside I knew I’d be walking out of the store with some sort of kitchen tool.

Jay and I are pretty clueless about fancy frying pans and pots and which ones have even heating but the de Buyer pan called out to us. Actually, it was our friend Gabe who led me over to the de Buyer display. “These are the good ones,” he said reverently. I picked up the pan, caressed it, read the label and fell in love. What I loved even more was that, compared to the other pans in the store, it was well within my budget at $42.

As soon as we got back home we began the process of seasoning the pan. We followed the instructions that came with the pan by first putting the peelings of a potato in the pan, covering them with water, and boiling the contents for 15 minutes.

Once that was done we threw away the peelings and rinsed the pan with very hot water (Jay boiled water in our kettle…he really wanted to make sure the water would be hot). After rinsing, Jay wiped the pan dry and added 1/2 cm of oil to it until just heated and then he discarded the oil and wiped the pan again. It was ready.

Seeing as there was a nice, peeled potato lying about I decided to make fries with our new pan. I have to add here that I absolutely hate frying food especially small pieces…like fries. But this was a special occasion and I desperately wanted to try out the new pan. I dried the potato with a paper towel before slicing it into strips. Once it was cut I again dried the potato strips and lightly salted them. On medium to high heat I cooked the fries in about a centimeter of vegetable oil until they turned golden.

Hooray for the new frying pan!

Jay’s “Manwich”

Pops De Milk — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:12:54 +0000

Yesterday afternoon, sitting at the kitchen table, I was busy working on a short story and eating the cookies I made earlier. Jay entered the kitchen and began to pull out contents from the fridge for a snack. I had my back to him while he chopped and cut and did who knows what. “Well, that’s the last of the stuffing. We are officially out of Thanksgiving leftovers,” he announced and he left the room for a minute. Curious, I turned around to find this:

That’s a sandwich (or manwich as Jay calls them) made with home made bread, tuna salad, stuffing, pickles, and cheese. I think that’s about it. I wasn’t around to watch him eat it though I do wonder how he managed to fit that inside his mouth.