red wine soaked burger with gouda, caramelized onions and rosemary aioli

I love New York City. I know that probably seems like the dumbest and most obvious thing out there that any person could say - akin, perhaps to announcing that you enjoy oxygen - but believe it or not, it's not. Adam is not a lover of New York City. He's not big on noise or crowds. He doesn't get the crazy eye when shopping. If anything, he gives the stink eye when shopping. He hates stuff and pretty things. Adam and New York City don't really get along. He is good to me though - he indulged me a few years ago when I wanted to visit the city for ten, yes TEN, days. Ten glorious days of shopping, eating, museum-going and generally gawping at things I'd seen on TV.

Now that I live in Montreal, it's a little easier visit New York. When my mom came to visit last month, I suggested we take a mini vacation, since a) it's fun and b) she's never been. After a long day of doing touristy things, and after having spent the day with all the good intentions of going somewhere a little less cheesy for dinner, we admitted defeat and picked the first restaurant we could within a one mile radius of our hotel. Proximity and rosemary aioli won me over to the Union Square Five Napkin Burger, which admittedly is fraught with Cactus Club style douchebaggery, but actually had a pretty good burger.

Of course, I planned to recreate this burger as soon as possible. As soon as possible ended up being about 2 weeks later (and one week ago). Here it is. Delicious and amazing.

rosemary roasted brussels sprouts & cauliflower (and Liebster awards!)

I'm going to let these roasted veggies speak for themselves. Mostly. The only thing I will say is this: They are crispy and fragrant with delicious burny bits. Rosemary and garlic hits you full in the face the second you open the oven door. They are salty and everything else good.

I could actually spend a lot more time talking about the miracle that is rosemary roasted brussels sprouts and cauliflower, but instead of tooting my own horn, for once I'm going to talk about some other bloggers who deserve recognition for their creativity and commitment to real ingredients. Unhip Squirrel was recently honoured with a Leibster award by Tobias at the lovely T & Tea Cake. This is an award given by bloggers to bloggers - it serves to recognise smaller blogs of under 200 followers that you think deserve to be noticed. I was ecstatic to be given this distinction, and now am absolutely delighted to be able to pass it on to 5 other bloggers who I think are doing something pretty special.

baked tilapia in smoked bacon with rosemary

I bet there are some of you out there who were expecting my next post to be beet cake. Sadly, the beet cake is in a big black garbage bag on my back deck, waiting for tomorrow's garbage pick-up. What went wrong? Well, I'll save those fascinating details for when I'm able to successfully write a post about beet cake. I will succeed if it is the last thing I do!

I found myself relatively near to Atwater market today and escaped with bags bursting with baby zucchini, patty-pan squash and red chiles. There's just something exciting about tiny vegetables. They remind me of French restaurants. I also left with wood-smoked bacon and tilapia - there's a recipe for cod in Jamie's Food Revolution that I've been dying to make for ages and, given that tilapia was going for a good price at the fish market, I decided to try it out with that.

dijon chicken with rosemary

 

This chicken was not much to look at. I struggled with whether or not to blog it based on its looks. I've posted ugly foods on this blog before (pulled pork with bourbon orange coriander barbecue sauce comes to mind, as does pea and mint soup), but as I progress through this blog, my standards are getting a little higher. With experience comes improvement. Improvement was not evident in any of the photographs taken. Only struggle, oversized garnish and ugly chicken.

Then I tasted the ugly chicken.

plum and rosemary upside-down cake

 

Happy Royal Wedding... weekend! Hurray! William and Kate are married and everyone is happy. I'm sure everybody is sick of hearing about it - except me. I spent hours watching the Royal Channel's rebroadcast of the ceremony last night. When Adam came home from work, he went on immediate alert because there I was, sitting on the couch, fixated on the screen, all red-eyed and stuffy. But no... there was no need to escalate threat levels. It was just my typical response to anything even vaguely emotional happening on tv.

So, in order to celebrate this momentous occasion (and because all I need is an excuse), I baked a cake! One made with plums, which are purple, which is the colour of royalty... right? Ok, maybe I'm stretching it.