New eats

By now it has to be evident to those who know us that we like food. Not only do we really like food, we like trying new recipes. When we were in Ontario last month, we ate poutine that was bought from a chip truck (that would be a french fry truck here in the U.S.). Poutine is a French-Canadian dish consisting of french fries topped with beef gravy and [traditionally] white cheddar cheese curds. James remembers it fondly from his childhood in Nova Scotia (although he remembers it topped with mozzarella) and asked me if I would make it at home.

Over and over as I looked for poutine recipes online, I kept finding recipes that called for a jar of beef gravy. Ugh. No offense to the jar gravy industry, but there was no way that I was going to pluck a jar of beef gravy off the grocery shelf and serve it to my family. I finally saw a recipe from Emeril Lagasse where the gravy was made using a roux and beef stock, which met my threshold of acceptability.

I do not, however, deep fry anything; not because I don't like foods that are deep fried, but rather because I don't like the mess. So I did cut a corner on our poutine by sending James to McDonald's for a couple orders of fries. He wasn't exactly thrilled with the substitution but found that to be a better alternative than baked Ore-Ida frozen fries!

In case the poutine was not a hit with everyone (and by everyone, I mean Aidan), I also made chili cheese fries using leftover Cincinnati chili and cheddar cheese. Here is the messy, incredibly decadent and not at all healthy dinner that we enjoyed on Saturday night:

In case it is not obvious, the chili cheese fries are on the left and the poutine is on the right. Delicious!

While searching for the poutine recipe on foodnetwork.com, I somehow came across a recipe for chili from Jamie Deen. I am not at all a fan of Paula Deen or her sons, but the recipe sounded so good that I was willing to overlook his parentage; as long as I don't have to watch them or listen to them, I will cook their food.

Last night we enjoyed Jamie's Award Winning Chili along with Grandmother's Buttermilk Cornbread:

Dinner was, in a word, outstanding. I usually make a more traditional southern-style cornbread - coarse, not at all sweet - in a cast iron skillet, but wanted to try a sweeter cake-like cornbread for a change. Happily, both recipes yielded lots of leftovers, and you can be sure that both recipes will be prepared again.