Money and Food

Most of you know that I earn a living as a financial advisor, here in Toronto. I can't and I won't give you any stock tips but I can tell you some fundamentals:

• Save your money. Even the best advisor can't make nothing out nothing.
• Diversify your portfolio. When I mean diversify, spread your assets equally among your real estate, retirement portfolio and investments. I see too many people without balance or diversification in this manner.
• Save 10% of your wages for emergencies etc. Everyone should have about 3 months salary saved, in case they need it. Sadly, the majority are 3 months away from bankruptcy.
• Don't have an advisor? Ask friends or relatives who they deal with, ask for a referral...you trust their judgement.
• Cut and pay off all your credit cards, just keep one and use it as a convenience...to rent a hotel, a car or book a holiday to earn points. If you don't have the money, don't buy it!
  
• Do not try and guess or time the market. It's a fools game...only the big guys can play this game and if you insist on playing with them, you're a fool.

Also, one of the good speakers at my recent conference was a Martin Feldstein, a professor of economics at Harvard University and the CEO of the National Bureau of Economics.

The bottom line:

Things in the US will get worse before they get better and there's a real danger of inflation or perhaps even stagflation. Canada, being so closely reliant on the US economy will no doubt feel a downside too.

As for the rest of the world, it will be affected by the US' recession but not to the same extent. Europe is self-contained and it currently is doing well and the Far East keeps on feeding off the locomotive economy of China.

Now how do I segue from money to food? It's quite simple...as a financial advisor, alot of my meetings are conducted at family's homes, after dinner, in their kitchen.

I smell what they ate for dinner, I discuss food, I review their spending habits as a family (and that includes groceries). Seeing how I have this info at my disposal and I conduct meetings in the kitchen, I have a good pulse of what people are buying and where they are buying their groceries.

Rising oil prices are causing food prices to rise everywhere, creating a pinch on family's budgets. From my experience here in Toronto, most family's are buying their groceries from discount supermarkets and the larger, costlier parent grocers.

Families are including more organic and "green" goods in their shopping list. Most families are also buying their meat and seafood from the same grocery store...one stop shopping.

Few families are buying fruits and vegetables from green grocers, organic farmers or farmer's markets.

Canada has one growing season. Planting occurs in May and early crops of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers are ready by August and all the otherfruits & vegetables are harvested up to October. Otherwise, anything listed as being from Ontario or Canadian comes from technology's gift to Canada, the greenhouse.

To live in Canada means we must exercise the necessary evil of imported produce from the US, Mexico and central and South America. The produce section in the winter time is filled with Chilean fruits & vegetables.

We can all try and do our best to buy organic, feed our families well and do our part to preserve our planet but isn't also paramount to put food on the table? I find some hypocrisy in someone who doesn't exercise the same diligence in shopping for fish or meats. Where did your chicken come from? That gorgeous piece of beef...is it USDA or Canada AAA? Is that Ontario Spring lamb or gamey New Zealand lamb? Is that fish from local waters or has it been frozen on a tanker all the way from Vietnam? Was the fish caught without endangering other species? The larger question...were these animals farmed organically, fed a good diet, slaughtered humanely?

I guess I got pretty heavy, eh? No need to worry. My serious moment has abruptly ended...it's time to put the chef's hat back on and later tonight...I'll be at a party and look for me wearing the lampshade on my head!

Look at what's on my table...baked halibut! Canada boasts of having alot of fish and despite Toronto being a 3 hour flight from the Pacific and a 9o minute flight from the Atlantic, we get some decent Canadian seafood flown into town and some weekly shipments of Mediterranean fish from Europe.

Everyone (except my brother who doesn't eat seafood) loved this baked halibut. Most people love halibut because we all ate it in fish & chips. Halibut, like most seafood use to be dirt cheap. Those days are long gone.

I lucked out with these halibut fillets during a recent visit to Toronto's famed St. Lawrence Market. It's open from Tuesday to Saturday and a friend of mine told how I could go down to the market on a Saturday afternoon and buy a pot-pouri of seafood for cheap.

What I got was a couple of halibut fillets, some squid, smoked mackerel fillets and a fillet of Mahi Mahi...all for $10! I'm not going to tell you which shop offers this...you're going to have to head down to the market and find out yourself!

Pistachio Crusted Halibut

4 halibut fillets
1/2 cup shelled pistachios
zest of 1/2 lemon
zest of 1/2 lime
zest of 1/2 orange
4 tsp. chopped fresh parsley
1 cup Panko bread crumbs
Dijon mustard
salt & pepper
olive oil

Pre-heated 400F oven

1. Roughly chop your pistachios and place in a bowl. Mix in your 3 types of zest, parsley and bread crumbs. While stirring with a spoon, slowly add some olive oil until the mixture sticks together.
2. Season your fillets with salt and pepper and brush each top part of the fillet with Dijon mustard.
3. Pack the breading on top of each fillet and place on a baking sheet that's been treated with oil.
4. Place in the upper middle rack of your oven bake for 20 minutes or until the tops have turned golden brown.
5. Serve with some rice and some sauteed and greens
   

Keftedes Stuffed With Cheese (Κεφτέδες Γεμιστές )

I'd like to thank you all for your well wishes for my mom. She's doing very well and let's not over do it. Knee surgery is pretty standard these days (no real complications) and although she's in some pain, she's also a woman and she's milking this opportunity to squeeze out as much pampering as she can get.

A few examples of this is:

"I don't like this pillow, go back upstairs and get me the other pillow. NO, not that one, the other one!"

Another "request" I often hear is , (BAM - BAM - BAM...sound of her cane thumping on the floor), "May I have my LUNCH now".

Or...."Peter, go put the wash in the dryer". Ten minutes later...."Peter, go check if it's dried yet". Five minutes later....."PETER....check the dryer...the clothes might be dried now".

Anyone want to adopt a mother? She has 2 bum knees, an overbearing Greek ego and, she's a fabulous cook. Two out of three ain't bad, right?

On to the food. One of my favourite summer time/BBQ-ing meats is to grill Keftedes. There are many variations of Keftedes but this is how our family makes them, friends and relatives ask for the recipe, we kindly comply.

In Greece, at a taverna, you will often see a stuffed keftedes offering on the menu. When ordering, this is for the hungry-man who wants to be fed, not just given a pretty presentation.

Greeks will place a piece of feta, Roquefort, Gouda or in my instance, Vlahotyri inside stuffed keftedes. Vlahotyri is a sheep's milk, aged, mildly sharp white cheese, reminiscent of a Grano Padano. If Vlahotyri isn't handy, a Greek Kasseri cheese will do just fine.

You can simply follow the ingredients listing for my Keftedes but because you're smacking two beef patties together to seal the cheese, the meat takes longer to cook.

Ground beef meat MUST be well done and if one uses lean ground beef, you will end up with a dry keftede. The solution is to use a medium(fat) ground beef. This method seems to solve the drying out issue with stuffed keftedes.

Finally, when forming the larger pattie to seal the cheese in the middle, it's important to pinch around the sides of the two patties. Do this well. Failure or neglect will leave you to watch your cheese ooze out of your keftedes and fade into the abyss of your grill.


Keftedes Stuffed With Cheese (Κεφτέδες Γεμιστές )
(for 6)

1 kg. of medium ground beef
2 medium onions, box grated
4 slices of bread, soaked in water (or milk), hand squeezed and then crumbled
1 tsp of garlic powder/1 tbsp grated fresh garlic
2 eggs (for binding)
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp chopped parsley
pinch of cumin
salt & pepper to taste
1 inch flat squares of cheese (Vlahotyri or Kasseri)

1. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well using your hands.
2. Form palm-sized patties with your hands, then squish them into flat patties and reserve in a platter. Cover with cling-wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
3. Before grilling, allow the keftedes to come back to room temperature. Take your piece of cheese and place it in the middle of one pattie. Now place another pattie on top and press the two patties together to form one larger keftede. Now using your fingers, pinch the entire perimeter of your pattie so that when you grill, the Keftede will hold together and your cheese will not leak.
4. Grill on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes a side.
5. Serve with some mustard/Mayo, Boukovo(red chilli flakes), a salad and some bread. Kali Orexi!
   

Crisp Roasted Potatoes

I've found myself in a flurry of activities this week. I've been tending to my mom's every whim as she's just completed her second knee replacement, I have tax returns to tend to, client meetings, working on some surprises for my blog while in Greece and today... I have to sit all day in a conference listening to market pundits tell me and other advisors about how the economy and markets are doing just fine (yeah right).

It's going to be a long, boring day and I'd rather be blogging, eating and trying out new foods. Before I commence this arduous day, I'm leaving you with a crisp roasted potatoes dish.

I think many of us neglect or give little thought to the side dishes when we prepare our food or in the collection of blogged dishes. The side dish gets little attention or a "quick & dirty", a filler.

I'm going to try and feature more side dishes. A meal is complete when you say, have a fabulous steak, fantastic potatoes and the most memorable veggies ever.

Here's some potatoes for ya...thin, crispy, seasoned just right, easy to prepare and above all delicious.

I used a mandoline (again) to cut the potatoes into uniform slices but I'm sure most of you know you're way around a knife.

Starchy potatoes like a Russet work best, olive oil, coarse salt, paprika, pepper and thyme. It's the K.I.S.S. principle today....Keep It Simple Stupid! lol

Crispy Roasted Potatoes

1 large Russet potato per person (skins on)
olive oil
coarse sea salt
cracked black pepper
sweet paprika
fresh or dry thyme

Pre-heated 475F oven

1. Get a large pot of water boiling. Generously season with salt and par-boil the potatoes for 10 minutes. Place the potatoes in an ice bath until they are safe to handle.
2. Using a mandoline or knife, cut your potatoes into thin slices.
3. Drizzle with olive oil and season with coarse sea salt, fresh black pepper, sweet paprika and thyme.
4. Place the potatoes in the oven and bake for approx. 12 minutes then flip for another 5-7 minutes on the other side.
5. Remove from the heat and keep warm.
   

Tried, Tested and True

I'm gonna get right to the point. The title of this entry is for a food event hosted by Equal Opportunity Kitchen.

Giz and Psychgrad, the mother & daughter duo co-host this food blog right from my the province I live in, Ontario.

The premise of the food event is to highlight a dish, recipe that has friends, relatives and bloggers raving about.

When I first read of this blog event, my mind immediately raced to my Baby Back Ribs. They have the flavour of being slowly done in the BBQ but all the work is done in the oven.

My dry rub is unique in that I use a hickory salt in the mix.

All the juicy details of my ribs can be found here.