Pork Scallopini with a Porcini-Gorgonzola Pan Sauce

Actually, what you see pictured is more a schnitzel than a scallopini.  But I’m going to do something radical here, and suggest that you not do what I did.

We love a good schnitzel around here.  Pork tenderloin, chicken…I make a lot of schnitzel around here.  So I kind of went on auto-pilot here until it got time to dress it up a bit.  I’ve been working pretty hard, locked up in my office, and our meals haven’t been as elaborate as late.

As I was dredging the pork, I remembered the dried porcinis and gorgonzola in the fridge.  Immediate visions of this glorious pan sauce burned my third eye, and at that point I realized I had over-breaded.  Too much breading (and too much clean up too).

So, like I said, don’t do what I did.  A simple dip in some seasoned flour is all there is to it.

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Za’atar Crusted Tuna with Buckwheat & Barley Risotto

I expected Howard to fight me on this one — so I only gave him a small scoop to start and topped it with a little extra tuna. (He’s a sucker for seared tuna.)

But he’s not fond of buckwheat, see…I’ve tried a few variations, but never received a lot of enthusiasm in return.

So I was a little surprised when he came back to the kitchen looking for more before I had even finished taking the photos of my plate (food blogging can be a drag at dinner time).

And then I sat down and had mine — and went back for more, almost right away.  It’s full of simple flavours, and the juxtaposition between the seared, almost cold, tuna and the creamy comfort of the barley/buckwheat is a surprisingly perfect pairing of opposites.

In other words, it’s really, really good.

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Marinated Wild Salmon with Sorrel Sauce

Occasionally, this blog becomes my confessional.  I think most personal blogs probably do.  But even for a confessional, this is a little extreme.  I’m practically sweating in my boots.  You see, today’s admission is one that a dedicated food blogger and chef should never have to make.

I blanked on Thanksgiving.  Yup, that’s right.  The first major food holiday of the season and I just realised 30 minutes ago that it’s only 2 days away.

But never fear — I’ve cut and pasted the different intro that I wrote for this post onto my desktop.  I’ll work it in further down — because, just like that, this delicious Indian-inspired dinner has become a quick-to-put-together alternative to your traditional all-day turkey and sides.

My menu of marinated, steamed salmon with sorrel and yogurt sauces on a basmati pilaf is a local, sustainable, seasonal, pescatarian Thanksgiving feast that makes for a Pacific Northwest harvest celebration just as good as turkey and sweet potatoes, in my humble opinion.  Not to mention that it’s also low-carb, gluten-free, high in Omega 3s and pretty darn good looking too.

In fact, if I hadn’t just gotten off the phone from booking us a table at Poet’s Cove for Sunday, this is exactly what we’d be having at our own Thanksgiving dinner.  But it seems I couldn’t even convince myself to go alternative.

What can I say?  Old habits die hard and this body remembers turkey.  (Even if the mind can’t remember Thanksgiving.)

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Flash-Fried Spot Prawns with Jicama Slaw

Live spot prawns off the dock are a real treat…sweet, rich, delicious…and, truth be told, a real pain in the tush to peel raw.  The connective tissue that attaches the flesh to the shell is too strong for anyone to make a neat job of it — and the last thing you want to do is mangle this treasure from the sea — the culinary gods would be displeased.

Instead, you’re better off to cook them shell on.  Some cooks twist the heads off before cooking.  I’ve seen more than a few locals take their newly purchased prawns over to the edge of the dock to give the heads back to the water before leaving with a bag of no-hassle tails.

If you delay the beheading until you get home, then you can keep the heads to make a velvety bisque.  Just know that their beady eyes continue to scan the room for quite some time after the separation.  I only mention it because it can be disconcerting to look down into the sink and have a couple of dozen eyes seemingly look back.  The trained cook in me knows that they are dead…that the movement is only reflex…the mostly buried squeamish girl in me still gets freaked out — if only for a second.

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Sui Choy Cabbage Rolls with Shrimp & Ponzu Sauce: Slow Food, FAST

My instincts have always been strong and, for the most part, reliable.  They’ve gotten me out of some tricky international traveling situations that I really had no business escaping undamaged.  Many of you may ask where those instincts were when I got myself INTO said trouble.   But, of course, no one’s perfect — especially the young, rash and (seemingly) indestructible.

My instincts around food have an even better record.  In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had cause to doubt them. So when I went down to the dock the other day to meet a fishing boat that makes periodic stops here on Pender, it didn’t occur to me for even a moment to check that my internal alarms were on and functioning.

Perhaps it was a crossed signal.  Maybe I was in a dead zone (there’s a couple on our little island full of hills and trees) or, more likely, I just wasn’t listening because I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer to my question.

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