This beef vegetable soup from Apples for Jam is tasty, but the broth is not quite as thick as I like. On the other hand, it's a hearty soup.

The variety keeps it multi-colored.

I used to think I was cooking shepherd's pie. Recently, someone told me that shepherd's pie is made with lamb and cottage pie with beef. I guess I never really had shepherd's pie. What about you? Which do you prefer?

 

This recipe for cottage pie is from the striped section of Apples for Jam.

It turned out fabulous. The only problem was that I didn't end up with many left-overs - most people had seconds.

The broiled scallops recipe in Totally Scallops is quick to prepare. The marinade reminds me a bit of the recipe from The New York Times Cookbook, as it also included vermouth. As I was out of vermouth, I substituted marsala wine.

I was supposed to serve the scallops on shells, but I didn't find shells in the supermarket.

Recently, I cooked chicken soup for the first time. At least, the first time that didn't involve a can and can opener.

Yes, that's a whole chicken in the pot. It's a big pot! After making the chicken stock, I chopped the chicken meat. I blended most into a purée, which I then stirred into the stock, making it thick and creamy. The rest I added back as substantial chicken chunks.

Takes a while to cook, but tasty and with lots of left-overs. This recipe from Apples for Jam is from the monochrome category. Only bright color was from the carrots while cooking.

I'm getting sick of deleting spam comments, so I have finally switched off anonymous commenting. You have to sign on to leave a comment. But you don't need a LiveJournal account - you can sign on with FaceBook, Twitter, Google, OpenID, and more.

This cauliflower was pretty good.

First I boiled it, then sauteed it with garlic.

I love most recipes for scallops. This recipe for scallops with serrano ham turned out pretty well, even with the substitution. The grocery didn't have serrano ham, so I used rosemary ham.

Hard to go wrong in a dish that includes both wine and cognac.

Friday night, a friend and I headed down to St. Lawrence Market to attend celebrity chef David Adjey's interactive cooking demo.

 

This was my first time to St. Lawrence Market, so I had to check out the independent food vendors.

Those olives look luscious. I never saw red olives before, and some of the green olives are incredibly bright.

 

At other vendors, I picked up balsamic fig and date mustard, and also chocolate - one a dark lemon dark chocolate bar and the other blueberry raspberry dark chocolate bar.

 

It was then time to head upstairs to the market kitchen.

 

Throughout the event, Chef Adjey called on volunteers to assist. Due to the short time to prepare three dishes, some parts of the meal had been prepared ahead of time. First up, we prepared French toast. This wasn't just any French toast - it was stuffed with plum jam, and topped with a nut streudel.

My job was to place the French toast on plates.

 

This dish was delicious! It was like dessert. Lunch follows breakfast. David Adjey said that serving the seafood bisque on a chili-infused waffle would get people talking. To me it felt more like "lunch" was turned into brunch.

 

We finished with dinner - a deconstructed taco. On the bottom of the plate, fajita-style peppers. Next, spicy chicken. Corn tortillas were cut into matchsticks and fried. I always ended up volunteering for plating. This time my job was to top the dishes with taco fries.

A flavorful tasty dish.

 

My only complaint about the evening is that Chef Adjey kept telling jokes that fell flat - and blaming the audience for our lack of amusement.

 

I have an email with the recipes - and I picked up David Adjey's cookbook. I'll cook some of the recipes on my cookbook journey.

This scallop-topped salad had all the ingredients to be a favorite.

Grilled scallops, grilled pineapple, avocado, and a mango chutney dressing all add lush flavor. Unfortunately, the recipe didn't call for enough of these ingredients relative to the amount of lettuce.

 

The salad pictured above was fairly good, but next time I'll include more of the goodies and see if it can become fantastic.