Monthly Mélange: March 2010

Noodles!!

March was a good month for food, some weeks being better than others for inspiring me to cook new things.

Here’s a rundown of some of my culinary highlights of March 2010. If there’s anyone out there reading my blog, feel free to comment with your own rundown of the month!

How did March 2010 taste?

Party in My Mouth
Chocolate. We’ve already discussed the spicy and decadent Soma “The Dark Fire” chocolate, but there are inexpensive options as well!! My latest find is the Côte d’Or Expériences Pistache Noir 70% (oddly, I couldn’t find it on the Canada website, so the page I’ve linked to is in French). This dark chocolate bar contains sugared pistachio, and a little extra pistachio “natural flavour”. It’s really tasty, and I’ve been a little addicted to it lately. It was on sale at Shopper’s this week, so I stocked up!

Monthly Spice
Chilhuacle Negro. This is a dried whole chili that I used in a recipe (to be posted in a couple of weeks). This was the first time I had bought dried, whole chilis. I loved the way they looked – the shape and colour, and the fine cracks in some sections. Like a piece of art!! They were great in my dish, too, and not too hot. Actually, I think I’ll use them WITH the seeds next time – I was being overly cautious the first time. So fun!!

Mystery Ingredient
Almond extract. I added a wee bit of this to my buttercream frosting (in place of 1/3 of the vanilla) and it was sooooo good. Can you tell I like the almond/pistachio kinds of flavours in things?

I Made This!
Hubs really liked the Mustard Trout. Not bad for wingin’ it! A close second would have to be the Malfatti that I just made, that I will be posting about later this week.

Shameful Secrets
I am out of unsalted butter. I have never in my life gone through as much butter as this, and I’m kind of embarrassed. What can I do? All of the cupcake recipes call for butter, and buttercream icing is *duh* primarily butter. Not to mention the importance of the lovely spiced butters used in Indian and Ethiopian food.

The days are now lasting longer… my herbs are starting to grow, and I have a slightly longer window of opportunity to take food pics. April will continue what we started with cupcakes, and I will likely have to go on a break from cupcakes for May. I may try to freeze one just to see if it’s still tasty 3 months later.

S

3 thoughts on “Monthly Mélange: March 2010”

  1. I have this sudden craving for cupcakes. I don’t even *like* sweets.
    I’d call you a bad influence, but your food waste challenge has me paying more attention to what’s in my fridge 🙂

  2. Hahaha… yeah, cupcakes are kind of addictive. They’re so pretty, too.

    I totally forgot to update about the post food waste challenge! I guess I’ll have to add that to April’s rundown.

  3. You said to share our rundowns. Here goes:

    I became the master of “Single Girl Food”.
    – Perogies (w/ lots of leftovers)
    – Pasta and meat sauce (w/ lots of leftovers)
    – Eggs, cuz I can’t cook.
    – Hot dogs, cuz I can’t cook.
    – uhh… leftovers.

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