Rubbishy Cookery

  On a recent road trip to New Brunswick and la belle provence  Québec I had some knockout meals. Surprisingly, the most memorable meals were not in the main destination, Quebec City, but in Fredericton NB, and inspiring today’s recipe, in Rivière du Loup, Québec. A fantastic little restaurant called L’innocent had a terrific vegetarian curried fried rice and I have tried to recapture its essence here, with some intentional (and some not-so-intentional) twists to make it my own, et plus « rubbishy ». (Sample of menu with inspirational fried rice at the end of the list, reproduced sans  permission.) Ingredients: There are some definite differences already between my experimental inspired version and the restaurant’s original: I’m using brown basmati rice, not white; whatever vegetables were in the fridge missing celery and adding red cabbage and cauliflower; I have no seeds (pumpkin and sunflower) but using chopped walnuts and almonds (I can’t recall what noix  they ...

  Who doesn’t love poutine? Ingredients: Note the power ingredient: You certainly don’t have to use authentic Québécois cheese curds, but then it’s not poutine. It’s what one university pub menu from my Alma mater called “fries with cheese and gravy”. Directions: I won’t lie: I’m taking a major shortcut here today using frozen fries, but they’re pretty darn good. I’ll do up some homemade fries in a future post. Also I’m cheating with the homemade gravy by copying from memory (from years, possibly decades, ago—so it may actually be quite different) a published gravy recipe from one of the famed Moosewood cookbooks, or so I think? First, pop those frozen fries into the oven. I’m making a single serving on a hot summer day, so I’m just using the toaster oven: And bake according to the bag’s directions until golden brown and crispy. Start making the Moosewood-plagiarized gravy by adding some canola oil to a saucepan and, when warm, add sliced fresh mushrooms: You’ve got it on medium-hi...