A local Latin BBQ

Meet Paul Spence. You may have met him at the Masonville Farmer’s Market sometime last season. Lo Maximo Meats is the name of Paul and his wife Sara’s farm business. Paul and Sara can be found running a creative and small-scale farm near Kent Bridge in the Chatham-Kent area. Lo Maximo Meats offers up a real specialty product to our community – Latin style cuts of meat. It does not stop there for this creative duo as they are now embarking on a new adventure – The Latin BBQ experience, which they are calling Experience Casa Latina. Paul and Sara hope to create a wonderful evening of introducing people to a new style of eating… the Latin way. What they are doing is really neat – they will let you take a peak at their charming farm, so you can see the journey from farm to plate and at the same time, they want to offer up an inside look at the Latin way of life. Music, salsa dancing, socializing and just plain having fun are all on the Spence menu. After the farm tour concluded, we headed over to The Botany Community Centre, which is an adorable and old one room school house dating back to 1883. This little school house has been converted into a cozy community centre with a working kitchen. It is steeped in history and some of that history runs deep in Paul’s own family tree – his great, great grandfather helped bring the bricks to build it and his own grandfather attended the old school. Sara had been there before us working her magic, and it was set up wonderfully with a gorgeous tableware, folded napkins and even ribbons adorning each chair. It definitively set the mood and made all of the guests feel honored to be there.   We all had a chance to talk to Sara about her hometown which is in Equador and her previous way of life before she moved to the cooler Canadian climate. Sara loves to have people ask her about South America and she wants more Canadians to know about it and experience some of the culture. One of Paul’s Chatham farm area neighbors Don Giffin was there with a whole display of the most gorgeous bottles of maple syrup I have ever seen. He was there to let people know how syrup is tapped and produced. He gave us loads of information on the syrup grades and consistency. He was an amazing guy whose maple syrup has won some pretty prestigious awards in the past. One of the large bottles had a gorgeous trillium displayed and on another favourite of mine – some maple leaves adorning it, they were truly exceptional. While we were inside talking to Sara and Don, Paul was outside grilling the meat on the BBQ – I believe that in Spanish the BBQ would be called a parrilla or open-fired grill and this is a very traditional way to cook the meat. Speaking of meat, there was alot of it. This is where the Latin experience comes in and really shines. We were introduced to the names of many different styles or cuts of meat and offal (hoove, tendons, brains, tongue – nothing is off the table at a true Latin BBQ). I am happy to announce that they did go easy on us at this particular parrilla.   There were regular farmer style sausage, pork and beef cutlets and the two most adventurous items on the menu were heart and kidney. I managed to try them both and I will say that I liked the heart but I think that would be my last time with the kidney. Some others that were present loved the kidney and passed on the heart – so, to each his/her own! Every kind of meat was accompanied with a homemade green sauce called chimichurri = delicious. There were also three gorgeous salads to accompany the meal, which Sara told me was more of a Canadian touch, as at a traditional Latin BBQ there would just be the meat. To finish, there was a delicious dessert which was Sara’s mother’s recipe – I cannot recall the exact name, but I believe it was a dulche de leche-type flan with another Canadian touch – whipped cream. As part of the Latin experience, Sara includes a salsa lesson to anyone interested, which we ran out of time on this particular evening. I have taken loads of other photos of the farm and some of the really creative projects that they have going on there currently, or are in the works. It really needs to be in another post, so if you are intrigued check back in a few days! Amar la vida! Experience Casa Latina Paul and Sara Spence 11945 Selton Line R.R.#3 Kent Bridge, ON, N0P 1V0 experiencecasalatina@gmail.com 519-365-9791    Read More

Berkshire Pork, Ambrosia Apple & Le Bonparte on Naan

This was delicious. I was reminded recently that I still had a coil of Berkshire Honey & Garlic sausage waiting patiently for me in the freezer. I bought this at the Slow Taste of Ilderton Food Show back in the fall from Eatwell Foods at Duenk Farms. I have no idea how it has managed to escape being gobbled up by now, but that has now been taken care of! I pulled the coil out and thought that it would probably be quite delicious on its own – but then I remembered how good it is with apple. I settled on an interesting sort of pizza, but with naan bread taking the place of the pizza dough. With this, I paired some Le Bonaparte cheese from Quebec. I found this cheese at  the London Food Co-op on Princess off of Adelaide Street. Lastly, the delicious flavour of an Ontario Ambrosia apple rounds out all the savory with a little nod to the sweeter things in life. Delicious, easy and speedy. Here is how you do it. One Ontario Ambrosia Apple (large) – sliced One coil of Ontario raised Bershire Honey & Garlic Pork Sausage 1/2 small Ontario red or sweet onion, thinly sliced Some creamy Canadian cheese (Bonaparte from Quebec is delicious) Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil (you could use a local safflower here instead) A sprinkle of your favourite dried spices Cut up your pork coil into bite sized pieces. Cook over medium heat, until sausage is browned, cooked through and no longer pink. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment and place 4 naan breads (or similar type of flat bread) on pans. Thinly slice up your onion and divide among breads. Cut apple into bite sized slices and also spread these on the breads. Take wedges of the Bonparte cheese and divide among naan bread. Finally, top with the fully cooked sausage, drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil and add any spices you wish – I went with the herbs de provence blend. Pop into oven for 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted. You can eat this as is. Sean decided he wanted his with grainy mustard for a little kick. I had some left over tomato chutney  that went really well with it. Sean also picked out the wine this week. He chose this Ontario wine which is a Baco Noir from Prince Edward County”s Sandbanks Winery. This wine was really light and packed alot of plum punch, it went very well with this fun little dinner. Hope you are all well, this winter is almost over, the dark days of food will be over with soon. Do not despair, as asparagus and rhubarb are just around the corner, behind that lump of a groundhog”s butt!  Read More

Under Pressure

Insanity laughs under pressure were cracking Cant we give ourselves one more chance? Why can”t we give love one more chance? Why can”t we give love give love give love? Give love give love give love give love give love Cause loves such an old fashioned word And love dares you to care For people on the edge of the night And love dares you to change our way Of caring about ourselves This is our last dance This is our last dance This is ourselves under pressure Under pressure pressure Now that Bowie has graced the page with some of his lyrics, this post can”t be all bad now can it? That certainly takes some of the ”pressure” off me.. heh heh heh. Now to the knitty gritty – there was pressure! I will admit it… there was alot of pressure. Let”s see… pressure on whether I should review a product in the first place (thank you very much to to CSN Stores for sending it), pressure on how to put it together, pressure on how to start cooking something in it, pressure on what to cook in it, then the actual pressure once the device started making pressure itself (there was crazy rocking accompanied by some steam and a few scary moments until I realized there was nothing to be scared of). Yes, that is right – I am happy to report there is nothing to be scared of here, nothing. I did not blow the kitchen roof off, I did not lose an eye, not even any burns occurred while operating this new gadget. The only thing of great concern is what I am going to cook in it next?! because it rocks. For the trial run I decided to go with some pork spare ribs that I had in the freezer. In the spring our neighbour knocked on the door and asked us if we wanted to split on a pig. Well, the truth is, he was more sly than that.. he cooked us up some honey garlic sausages on the BBQ a few weeks before that,and had us drooling for more and THEN he came over and asked if we wanted to go splitzies.  Out of the half we received bacon,chops, sausages, roasts and more. There was this one package marked spare ribs and I had never cooked them before, so I decided that I would go with that as my first adventure into the pressure cooker world. I used a simple recipe that came with the cooker and adjusted only slightly but it turned out great. It”s true what people were saying in the comments on the initial post (read here), that the meat actually falls away from the bone and the cooking time is so fast. I ended up browning the meat and then locking the lid and then did the cooking from there. You barely have time to get a salad made before the timer goes off. Easy peasy. This beaut”  is really just a big pot that has a special lid that locks in place. I have learned that the way a pressure cooker works is that air inside the pot gets ”locked in” with your food, and as this air gets ”used up” as it heats, it then turns into steam. Since the steam is trapped in there, this creates the pressure and the pressure raises the internal temperature much faster than any regular pot with a normal lid. At 15 pounds of pressure, a temperature of 250ºF is reached very quickly and then the food cooks super speedy at those kinds of temperatures. The steam also acts as a tenderizer, as all that steam penetrates itself into the food and in turn, makes for a very moist meal. Pork Spare Ribs in a tomato sauce Easy steps: Brown the Ontario meat of your choice with some local onions, pour sauce over top, lock the special lid in place, place pressure regulator on top of lid, turn up the heat to high until the regulator starts to rock back and forth, once regulator reaches a steady “rock” – adjust heat to keep it steady and start the timer for 15 minutes, once the 15 minutes is up, turn off the heat and let the pressure come down on its own (don”t do anything). Once the lid is able to be unlocked, open it up and you will find moist, tender meat that is falling off the bone inside, all within the span of about 25 minutes total with prep. Vegetarians – I am sorry I went with a meat example here, but I will do a nice veggie soup in the future AND I am going to try and can/preserve in the pressure cooker and I will be sure to post all about that in the summer! Let me know what you think. Please share some recipes in the comment section, I would love some more ideas. For the record – CSN Stores delivered the cooker in under 8 days and it came right to the door. I think that is very fast. They were friendly and they have everything there on that website… everything.  Read More