Funnel Cake

One of the best parts about going to county fairs and tourist areas is being able to sample a lovely array of somewhat naughty foods.  They are naughty simply because they would never fit into the health food category but at the same time make you feel good by indulging.  Who can resist piping hot soft pretzels, elephant ears, funnel cake or even just the heavenly smell of cotton candy not to mention the glistening red candy apples and delectable caramel corn?

Funnel cake is often available at county fairs.  This light, donut confection gets it's unique appearance by the way the batter is put in the deep frier.  Rather than adding the batter in a clump as you would a dough the batter is poured into a squeeze bottle then squirted into the hot oil while moving the bottle in different directions to create a lacy design.  Alternately the batter can be poured through a funnel into the hot oil.  Like a snowflake, no two funnel cakes are the same.  Funnel cakes are usually made when you order them so they a nice and hot, perfect for snacking!

Funnel Cake

3 c unbleached flour
2 c milk
½ tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¼c sugar
topping of choice: sugar/cinnamon, icing sugar, chocolate sprinkles, and etc.

Heat oil to 190ºC/375ºF.  Beat the eggs and milk together.  Stir in vanilla.  Mix the flour, baking poser, salt and sugar together in a separate bowl.  Mix into the egg mixture beating well so there are no lumps.  Pour the batter into a squeeze bottle.  Squeeze batter while moving the bottle in different directions to form a somewhat lacy pattern.  Fry until golden brown, turn and fry other side.  Drain on paper towel lined cooling rack.  Sprinkle with topping of choice if desired.

Bacon on the Grill

Bacon seriously should be a food group of its own.  We love bacon!  Bacon can be cooked in a skillet but there are other ways to cook bacon that makes it a bit healthier.  When cooking larger amounts of bacon I like to cook on a rack over top of sided cookie sheet in the oven or grill.  The grease drains off while the bacon strips stay rather flat.  Some line the cookie sheet with tin foil for easy cleanup but I don't.  The reason is once the bacon grease cools I scoop it up for use in cooking later.

We had a fair amount of company during our recent stay at our vacation home.  One of our guests generously offered to cook the bacon, on the grill no less.  Now this was rather interesting because the bacon was cooked directly on the grill grates without using any baking sheet at all.  I found this to be a rather interesting cooking method.

Bacon produces a lot of grease which means flare-ups on the grill.  However, cooking on the grill keeps the heat and grease splatters out of the house.  So of course I was interested in this cooking method.  Pictured is the cooking bacon on the grill grates. 

All of the grease from the cooking bacon dripped down onto the grill and was burned off.  This did result in more flare-ups.  Our friend cooked the bacon to crisp as pictured.  I like my bacon crisp but my husband does not.  Still this was a lovely way to cook the bacon and definitely one I will be experimenting with in future. 

Surprisingly despite more flare-ups than would be expected with higher fat content meat, the grill cleanup was minimal.  There was grease in the drip pan which is to be expected.  The downside to using the grill is the bacon grease can't be saved for later use but it keeps the heat out of the kitchen which is quite desirable at our vacation home.  All in all though this really resulted in a lovely bacon.

Kitchen Quick Tips - Preventing Food Stains on Plastic Storage Containers

Spray a light coating of oil on the inside of plasticware before pouring tomato based foods into the container to prevent staining.  

Last of the 2010 Brandywine Tomatoes

We eat tomatoes on almost a daily basis in one form or another.  Not only do I grow a lot of tomatoes I also have access to free tomatoes.  The end of the tomato growing season is always bittersweet.  I pick as many tomatoes daily once the threat of frost is near.  As the ADFF approaches I strip the garden of any green tomatoes as well.  These are left to ripen indoors.  With any luck we have garden tomatoes to eat into December. 

There were only a couple semi-green Brandywine tomatoes left.  We were on vacation the last couple of weeks of September and first week of October so I told family and friends to help themselves to any ripe tomatoes.  These are a lovely producing, slicing heirloom tomato perfect for tomato sandwiches.  They have a pinkish tone to them when ripe.  The flavour is quite delicious so I certainly was happy to see them. 

Just look at those gorgeous tomato slices!  Aren't they wonderful looking?  I think they are quite lovely but then I'm a bit partial.  My mouth was watering in anticipation just cutting the slices.

One of the things we missed the most when we lived in Edmonton was decent BLTs.  BLTs are one of our favourite sandwiches!  The only tomatoes available were anemic, hard balls that resembled tomatoes with all the flavour of cardboard.  I also noticed the tomatoes where our vacation home is in the sunny south are about a tasty as those in Edmonton!  Once we run out of home grown tomatoes we can get hot house tomatoes in the grocery stores here in Ontario but they lack the flavour of a good homegrown tomato.  Sadly we will not eat another great BLT (pictured) like we had mid-October this year until the next growing season starts producing.  We can however dream of this wonderful sandwich over the cold winter months.