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 ...

  It’s that time of year again—holiday parties! You have to bring something, you can’t arrive empty handed, but what can you whip up rubbishly without appearing rubbishy? I can help you. These nuts are originally from a published recipe on a long-forgotten bougie recipe blog, but I’ve pimped them up so much I don’t feel any compunction to confess to any plagiarism. These nuts are original Rubbishy Cookery now baby. Ingredients: Directions: This first part is the part I’ve “borrowed” from the other posh blog (whose name I’ve forgotten so I couldn’t credit them even if I wanted to. Sorry not sorry!). Toast a tray of mixed or single type of nuts at 300F for about 10-15 minutes or until the nuts are fragrant and light brown inside, without burning them: This part is critical (and thanks to the other highbrow blog of long forgotten title): get those hot nuts into a bowl and pour in a good glug  of tamari sauce and a smaller glug of toasted sesame oil—they will sizzle hard and evapo...

  This is my current go-to breakfast, and not because I’m a health food nut. I have HFN tendencies, but as my other recipes will attest, I am not a true nut.  This breakfast tastes good, keeps me satisfied until lunch time, and is easy to put together in the morning.  I will say that healthfood-type ingredients tend to be expensive, and are becoming ridiculously expensive. This is not your cheapest option for breakfast, but you’re worth it! Ingredients: Directions: First things first. Let’s toast those sliced almonds until they are golden brown and fragrant. If you do this in your toaster oven, watch them like a hawk the first few times to figure out your oven’s settings and heat level. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve not followed this advice and burned my delicate (and expensive) sliced almonds, rendering them inedible. When they were normal-expensive, it was bad enough. Now that they’re ridiculous-expensive, it’s not an option. This is how they look pre-toasting: T...